Oakland County monkeypox task force to establish vaccine rollout for when supply improves

Oakland County health officials plan to combat monkeypox and establish a plan for vaccine rollout when more vaccine becomes available in an effort to stop the emerging virus.

County Executive Dave Coulter said Thursday he wants to get ahead of the virus before it gets exponentially worse in the county. He is forming a task force to communicate with and educate the public and determine who should be vaccinated when vaccine supply improves.

Michigan's first probable monkeypox case was announced three weeks ago in an Oakland County resident. As of Thursday, Coulter said there are five confirmed cases in the county, another probable case and another case that health officials are investigating. All of the cases have involved  adult males.

There are now 20 cases in Michigan: seven in Detroit, five in Oakland County, four in Macomb County, two in Kent County and one each in Wayne and Wash counties. The number of Oakland County cases dropped from Wednesday, when eight were listed on the state's new monkeypox website michigan.gov/mpv.

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It appears some of the cases originated from an Oakland County health care provider who reached out to the local health department, which the state has asked providers to do when testing for possible monkeypox cases, said Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for the state health department.

"Once contact was made with the cases by the local health department, updated address information was determined," she said. "The cases were then transferred to the correct jurisdiction for additional follow-up. This is pretty standard with communicable diseases and happened (and still happens) with COVID cases."

There were  more than 2,300 monkeypox cases in the U.S. as of Wednesday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than more than 15,300 cases worldwide.

Coulter said part of the problem is not enough vaccine.

"The population of individuals most at-risk is far greater than our capacity to vaccinate them," he said, adding the number of vaccine doses is "woefully inadequate."

Coulter said the federal government allocated 1,800 doses to Michigan and there is enough vaccine in the county to vaccinate 350 people. Because of the small number, only those with a known exposure are being treated.

Coulter said more vaccine is expected by the end of August, with production to be ramped up by October. He said there is enough antiviral medication called tecovirimat, also known as TPOXX, to treat four people.

More: Michigan launches monkeypox website, Oakland County forming task force to address outbreak

More: Michigan's first probable case of monkeypox virus is in Oakland County

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has distributed nearly 200,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine and accelerated the inspection of about 800,000 vaccine doses for delivery this summer. Millions more are to be procured for delivery in mid-2023, according to a fact sheet Thursday.

Dr. Paul Benson, an HIV specialist and medical director at Be Well Medical Center in Berkley, will be on the task force. He has been in practice since 1980 and serves a large segment of the LGBTQ+ community. Coulter said Benson has seen most, if not all, of the monkeypox cases in the county.

Many affected in the global outbreak are men who have sex with men, but state health officials said anyone who has been in close contact with someone who has monkeypox can get the illness.

Benson said when monkeypox was identified in humans in Africa in the 1970s "there was no predilection for it affecting gay men. A matter of fact, gay men were very few, if any, of the cases in Africa. So something has changed because when monkeypox escaped Africa — it was there for many years — it now is affecting gay men."

Benson is "concerned that people may label monkeypox as a gay disease" and said "because it is spread through sexual contact that people not understanding the LGBTQ community may think that these individuals are people that are sleeping around with multiple numbers of people and that's how it will spread. And that is partially true ... (but) not every gay man or transgender woman or lesbian sleeps around with a number of people. We are capable of loving, lasting, monogamous relationships just like everybody else."

Benson said doctors should ask people their sexual history to identify those who are high risk, educate them and perhaps put them at the front of the line to get vaccinated when a greater supply of vaccine arrives.

"The straight community cannot just sit back and watch this as they did in the 1980s with AIDS," Benson said. "It's going to cross over. The question is, is when and how quickly we can get the vaccine out to end this epidemic."

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oakland County monkeypox task force to establish vaccine rollout