HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said the federal government will announce allocations of the 786,000 vaccine doses to local authorities on Thursday.
"It is unclear why the FDA delayed inspection of a stockpile needed for biodefense, and this omission has cost valuable time in the U.S. response to monkeypox. Bureaucratic delays should not prevent us from getting the vaccine doses we need now," Reps. Mondaire Jones and Jerrold Nadler, both of New York, wrote in the letter signed by 48 other members of Congress.
The House Democrats also called on the White House to declare a public health emergency and work with Congress to secure additional funding to respond to the outbreak. The FDA approved the Jynneos vaccine in 2019 for people ages 18 and older who are at a high risk of exposure to monkeypox or smallpox. The viruses are in the same family, though monkeypox causes milder disease. There is no data on how effectively the vaccines will prevent disease in the current outbreak, according to the CDC.