Oakland will receive an additional 2,400 monkeypox vaccine doses in anticipation of the city’s Pride and Pridefest events, federal officials said this week.
According to the White House, the number of doses administered during both events will be replenished in California’s stockpile of vaccines.
Federal and state officials also plan to coordinate to disperse educational information about how to prevent and treat the virus to those attending Oakland Pride and Pridefest.
Supply of the two-dose Jynneos vaccine for smallpox and monkeypox — or MPX — continues to lag behind demand, but federal officials said this week that the country is close to having enough vaccine to vaccinate some 1.6 million people who are at the highest risk of contracting the virus.
Federal regulators gave their approval last month to administer the monkeypox vaccine just under the surface of the skin rather than the standard vaccination method involving an injection into muscle or fat tissue.
State and federal public health officials suggested intradermal vaccinations will provide similar immunity to monkeypox and will expand the amount of available vaccine doses by a factor of five, because intradermal injections require only one-fifth of the dosage needed for administration in a person’s shoulder or other muscle tissue.
Oakland Pride — which returns as a live event after two years being held virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic — is scheduled for Sunday while Pridefest is set for Sept. 11.