HOUSTON – Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee held a news conference Monday to call for domestic production of monkeypox vaccine in the United States after the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency.
Related: Monkeypox vaccine arrives to Houston area healthcare facilities, officials say
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The Houston Health Department reportedly received a shipment of monkeypox vaccines on Friday, officials say. According to Houston Health, about 5,024 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine were received.
The department says they will divvy up the shipment by sending 1,508 of those vaccines to Harris County Public Health. Vaccines were allocated to local health departments by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Monkeypox is still being classified as a rare condition, despite the recent uptick in outbreaks. Health care professionals say it doesn’t spread easily between people without close, personal, skin-to-skin contact. Symptoms include a rash or sores that look like pimples or blisters, fever, headache, weakness, chills and swollen lymph nodes.