WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amid a concerning spike in monkeypox cases in California, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein (both D-Calif.) sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra urging him to provide at least 600,000 additional doses of the monkeypox vaccine to California. The state currently has the second highest positivity rate in the country and is home to the first major city, San Francisco, to declare a state of emergency in response to the outbreak. Their letter follows an announcement by HHS yesterday that the agency plans to make an additional 780,000 doses available to states. The Senators are urging that California receives a proportionate amount of doses to match the severity of the outbreak in the state.

“Due to limited supplies, only Californians with suspected or confirmed monkeypox exposure are currently eligible for vaccination, and testing has been limited to individuals with a rash. As we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, a sustained period of limited testing and vaccine availability early in a public health crisis is a recipe for disaster. In the case of monkeypox, it is also largely avoidable, given the availability of an approved vaccine,” wrote the Senators. “Therefore, we urge you to fulfill California’s request to surge 600,000 – 800,000 vaccine doses to California as quickly as possible in order to halt the transmission of monkeypox, particularly in those communities that have already been disproportionately impacted.”

Recently, Padilla and Feinstein signed a letter to HHS Assistant Secretary Dawn O’Connell and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky urging the agencies to address the inequities in access to vaccines and immediately increase access to the JYNNEOS monkeypox and smallpox vaccine to all communities in the United States.

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

Dear Secretary Becerra,

We write to express our increasing concern about the monkeypox outbreak in California, and we urge you to fulfill California’s request for additional vaccines to be surged to the state as quickly as possible, as expressed in the attached letter from California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly and Dr. Tomás Aragón of the California Department of Public Health.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California has documented 799 probable and confirmed cases of monkeypox, making the outbreak in California the second largest in the United States after New York. Additionally, the outbreak has been concentrated in Los Angeles and San Francisco and has disproportionately affected members of the LGBTQ+ community. California conservatively estimates that between 250,000 to 350,000 individuals in California are considered to be at high-risk of contracting the virus.

Due to limited supplies, only Californians with suspected or confirmed monkeypox exposure are currently eligible for vaccination, and testing has been limited to individuals with a rash. As we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, a sustained period of limited testing and vaccine availability early in a public health crisis is a recipe for disaster. In the case of monkeypox, it is also largely avoidable, given the availability of an approved vaccine.

Therefore, we urge you to fulfill California’s request to surge 600,000 – 800,000 vaccine doses to California as quickly as possible in order to halt the transmission of monkeypox, particularly in those communities that have already been disproportionately impacted.

Thank you for your attention to our request, and we look forward to working with you to stop the spread of monkeypox in California as quickly as possible.

Sincerely,

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