Health

(NEW YORK) — Federal regulators are expected to decide on a new COVID-19 vaccine design in early July, which would allow vaccine companies to begin production for rollout this fall and winter, a top official told ABC News.

Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said the decision would likely come from the FDA shortly after its advisory committee meets on June 28 to review data from the vaccine companies about the versions of next-generation vaccines they’re testing.

The FDA will then make a decision on which type of vaccine the companies should go ahead with, an estimation they’ll base on what could offer the best protection even in the face of new variants this fall and winter, similar to how the flu vaccine is concocted ahead of flu season.

“We’ll have to make some decision by early July to make sure that the manufacturers know what we’re looking to do, so that they know what they have to start producing in large quantities,” Marks, who serves as director of the department that oversees vaccines within the FDA, told ABC News in an interview.

Under consideration is how to give people “the longest duration of a high level of protection” with their vaccines, not just because it’s unrealistic to keep boosting every few months, but also because experts predict another surge in the colder months.

Second boosters for wider age-range?

Already at play, however, is the current surge. Cases are rising and nearly a third of the country is currently at medium- or high-risk community COVID levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That’s why, in the meantime, the FDA is also internally discussing whether to open up second boosters to a wider age-range to mitigate rising cases, Marks said. They’re currently only available for people over 50, or people over 12 who are immunocompromised.

The FDA would have to come to a decision in the next few weeks to intervene effectively, as cases are already on the rise, Marks said.

“I can tell you that that discussion is already happening internally — it’s just that I can’t tell you what the outcome will be at this point,” he said.

“We would not be doing our job as public health professionals if we weren’t thinking about it, and thinking about the benefits and risks,” he added.

For example, hospitalization rates for people under 50 who have received their first booster are still relatively low, Marks said, indicating boosters might not be necessary for younger people. But the FDA is also looking into the risks from even mild infections, like long COVID, and whether booster shots would mitigate that.

Opening up second boosters to more people would just be a stop gap measure, though. The vaccines for the fall are intended to offer a more lengthy, durable protection.

“We’d be looking at things like at least 10% higher in terms of immune response, if not more, against the currently circulating virus,” Marks said, laying out the criteria the FDA is looking for in the future vaccines.

The vaccines would have to be superior, at least against the current variants like omicron and its subvariants, to make it worthwhile to switch over from the vaccines in use now.

Who would get a new vaccine?

Though it could change when the advisory committees meet, Marks said he expects the next-generation boosters to be available for all age groups.

As far as timing, all ages should become eligible around the same time, Marks said, unlike the lengthy waiting periods of months between older and younger age groups with the current vaccines.

And the FDA also hopes to get both vaccine companies, Pfizer and Moderna, to produce vaccines that target the same strains.

“People are very confused about everything, to have different compositions for different vaccines will get things even more confusing,” Marks said.

Booster fatigue a factor

Just 43% of those 65 and older have gotten a vaccine dose in the last six months, be it a first or second booster, according to the CDC, even though nearly 90% of people in that age group got their initial vaccination series.

“From a public health standpoint, what we’ve seen is if it only lasts three or four months, it may be that there’s a recommendation that you get another one, but the vast majority of people are not going to keep coming in and getting more boosters,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

“With each one, we lose some more people,” Wachter said.

Come fall, that fatigue could be exacerbated by calls for yet another booster.

If the vaccine is more effective, though, that could help to convince people it’s worth another round.

Experts are wary that the vaccine this fall will last a full year, but expect it will at least be more effective in its protection because it will be updated with more of the recent variants, whereas the current vaccine is based on the first strain of COVID from 2019.

Dr. Paul Goepfert, director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic, is overseeing research on the new vaccines as part of the National Institute of Health study. They’re looking into vaccines that target just one new variant, like omicron, and vaccines that target a handful of the variants from the past two years, like omicron and delta, both in one shot.

“By the end of all that, for the fall, we’re going to know which of these vaccine combinations gives us the highest antibody response towards the most new and improved variants,” Goepfert said.

He expects the new vaccine will better protect against severe disease, but cautions that stopping all infections is a lofty goal.

“I am hopeful that maybe we could have a yearly vaccine rather than this every few months go back to get the vaccine boost,” Goepfert said, but that’s probably “one or two more tries” away.

Resources in question

Of course, the overarching issue of resources still remains. Who will pay for these new vaccines, or the ones after them?

Congress has yet to strike a deal with the White House for more COVID funding, even as other countries move ahead with negotiations with the vaccine companies.

White House COVID response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha warned on Wednesday that if Congress doesn’t agree to billions in new COVID funding, not every American who wants a vaccine this fall will be able to get one.

Should the FDA decide that not everyone needs a vaccine — that only people over 50, or over 65, need another booster shot — that wouldn’t be an issue. But Marks said he’s hopeful that if “the right thing to do medically” is to recommend them to everyone, of all ages, the country will be able to purchase those doses.

“I’m not worried about who’s paying for what. I’m worried about making sure that our recommendations that come out of FDA are the right thing by the people of this country in terms of their health,” Marks said.

“So we will make a recommendation that, based on all of the available evidence, comports with what we see would do the best by public health in the coming year,” he added.

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(NEW YORK) — A Massachusetts resident has tested positive for monkeypox, health officials confirmed Wednesday, making it the first case of the rare virus detected in the United States this year.

According to a release from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the patient is an adult male who recently traveled to Canada. The department completed initial testing Tuesday and was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The case poses no risk to the public, and the individual is hospitalized and in good condition,” MDPH stated in a press release. “DPH is working closely with the CDC, relevant local boards of health, and the patient’s health care providers to identify individuals who may have been in contact with the patient while he was infectious.”

The New York City Department of Health announced Thursday that it was investigating a possible case of monkeypox. The patient is being cared for at Bellevue Hospital and all appropriate isolation measures are being followed, according to the department. The patient’s tests will be sent to the CDC for confirmatory testing, the department said.

It comes after four more cases of monkeypox were identified in the U.K recently, bringing its nationwide total to nine since the beginning of May.

The resident was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on May 12 and “during the course of their admission they were identified as a possible monkeypox suspect,” Dr. Erica Shenoy, associate chief of the hospital’s infection control unit, told reporters during a briefing Wednesday.

Hearing about cases of monkeypox in the U.K. encouraged doctors to “think more broadly about the patient’s diagnosis,” Shenoy said.

Hospital officials said they are unaware of any cases in Canada at this time and do not know where the resident may have contracted the disease.

Monkeypox is a rare disease caused by the monkeypox virus. The first case among humans was recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970, and the illness has since spread to several other nations, mostly in central and western Africa.

It can transmit from animals to humans when an infected animal — such as a rodent or a primate — bites or scratches a person. The CDC said humans can also be infected when hunting wild animals or preparing bush meat for consumption.

The disease can also spread from person to person via large respiratory droplets in the air, but they cannot travel more than a few feet, so two people would need to have prolonged close contact.

The most common symptoms are fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.

Very few cases of monkeypox have been identified among Americans.

According to the CDC, the disease does not naturally occur in the U.S. Infections are usually identified among people who recently traveled to countries where monkeypox is more commonly found.

In 2003, 47 confirmed and probable cases were reported in six U.S. states, the first human cases reported outside of Africa.

All the infections occurred after coming into contact with pet prairie dogs, which in turn became infected “after being housed near imported small mammals from Ghana,” the CDC stated.

Since then, just two other cases have been detected in the U.S., both associated with travel.

In July 2021, a case was confirmed in a Texas resident who had recently returned from Nigeria and in November 2021, another case was found in a Maryland resident who had also traveled to Nigeria.

ABC News’ William Gretsky contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Countries in Europe and North America are continuing to report more cases of monkeypox, but experts say the disease so far does not pose a serious risk to the public.

At least 17 infections of the rare disease have been confirmed in non-endemic areas such as the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden and Italy, and dozens of possible cases are under investigation in those nations as well as in Canada and Spain.

Most cases occur when people encounter infected animals in countries where the virus is endemic — typically central and western Africa as occurred with the outbreak’s first case, reported in England on May 7 among a person who had recently traveled to Nigeria.

However, none of the remaining eight cases in the U.K had travel history and did not have contact with the patient who had visited Nigeria, according to the U.K. Health Security Agency, suggesting there is some level of community transmission.

Similarly, the first infection recorded in the U.S. was in an adult male from Massachusetts who had recently traveled to Canada, and now at least 17 cases are being investigated by Canadian authorities.

Health experts stress the risk to the public remains low and most people don’t need to be immediately fearful of contracting the illness.

“​​It is a virus in a very different class from COVID-19,” Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News. “It predominantly lives in animal reservoirs so it sort of by accident gets to humans and it may cause sporadic illness or relatively small outbreaks.”

Monkeypox is a rare disease caused by the monkeypox virus, which was first identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1958 in monkeys being kept for research.

The first human case was detected in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“It’s important to note this is not a new virus,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “This has been around for a long while. It’s mostly endemic in parts of western Africa but you will occasionally see it in other parts of the world.”

People are typically infected by animals through a bite or a scratch or through preparation and consumption of contaminated bush meat.

The disease can also spread from person-to-person via large respiratory droplets in the air, but they cannot travel more than a few feet so two people would need to have prolonged close contact.

“It transmits through large droplets, which don’t travel very far, or through contact with lesions themselves or touching someone with bed linens or clothes or recent contact with lesions,” Doron said. “It’s not something you get without very close intimate contact, which is why it doesn’t tend to cause outbreaks.”

She added this transmission route is different from that of COVID-19, which is spread through small aerosols that can hang in the air for several minutes.

“Aerosols are not subject to gravity but large droplets, they get pulled to the ground,” Doron said. “Also, monkeypox isn’t an illness that is transmitted during the asymptomatic phase, which is what made COVID such a formidable foe.”

Monkeypox generally is a mild illness with the most common symptoms being fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.

Patients can develop a rash and lesions that often begin on the face before spreading to the rest of the body.

“It starts out as spots, then small blisters like you’ll see with chickenpox, then pus-filled blisters and then they scab over,” Doron explained. “It’s a long illness. It lasts a few weeks, but you can be contagious for several weeks and contagious until the blisters scab over.”

ABC News confirmed Thursday the CDC is monitoring six Americans who were on the same flight as the British patient who tested positive after traveling to Nigeria.

“They will be followed by health officials for 21 days following their last possible contact with the ill traveler,” the CDC said in a statement. “None of the six have any symptoms of monkeypox and the risk for them is very low.”

Health officials said it is likely that more cases will emerge either in the U.S. or in other countries, but that Americans should not be concerned.

“We will find more cases,” Brownstein said. “There is now heightened public awareness and clearly there will be more clinicians that will be able to recognize the symptoms.”

He continued, “But for now, there’s nothing to suggest this will have anywhere near the same global impact as COVID-19. The risk to the general public is low.”

ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent advisory committee has given the green light for Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 booster shots to be given to children ages 5 to 11 years old, paving the way for parents to get their children boosted as early as Friday morning.

The panel voted 11-1-1 in favor of approval. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is expected to make the final signoff to recommend the shots shortly.

“We have the tools we need to protect these people from severe disease, and to prevent any more tragic deaths,” Walensky said during brief remarks at the beginning of the meeting. “It’s important for us to anticipate where this pandemic is moving and deploy the tools we have where they will have the greatest impact.”

Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of the booster shots among younger children to be used at least five months after completing their first round of shots.

Children over the age of 5 became eligible for vaccination against COVID-19 in November, so the first kids who were in line for their shot have now had about six months of protection.

Pfizer asked the FDA in April to authorize its booster vaccines for younger children, after it submitted data that indicated their shot was safe and generated a strong immune response.

Vaccine effectiveness after two doses against symptomatic infection “quickly declined for children and adolescents during omicron,” Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles, who leads the COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness program for the CDC’s Epidemiology Task Force, said on Thursday. A booster dose in adolescents significantly improved effectiveness — up to 71% — in the weeks and months after receiving the third dose.

Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization after doses for children ages 5 to 11 years old hovered around 68%, to a median of 37 days after the second dose, while effectiveness stood around 51% in adolescents.

“Some waning” was evident when analyzing declining vaccine effectiveness for hospitalization in adolescents who had received two doses. However, Link-Gelles reported that there was not enough data to assess waning effectiveness in children ages 5 to 11 or the impact of boosters against hospitalization in children ages 12 to 15.

The benefits of the booster dose outweighed any known and potential risks and a booster dose can help provide continued protection against COVID-19, officials said, particularly given concerns over waning immunity.

Many panelists argued that the pandemic is not over, and continues to pose a risk to all Americans, including young children, and thus, vaccination and boosting remains critical in protecting all age groups.

“As a mother, an infectious disease specialist and a member of [the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices], my children are older than this age cohort, however, if they were still in this age cohort, I would give my children this booster,” said Dr. Camille Kotton, clinical director in the Infectious Diseases Division at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Vaccination has provided “measurable, detectable” benefits in preventing “a wide range of health outcomes, and that includes infection, emergency department visits, hospitalization and critical illness” in adults, Dr. Matthew Daley, a senior investigator at Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, said, asserting that the same is likely true in young children.

“It just wouldn’t make sense that 5- to 11-year-olds are the only group among the age eligible for whom a third dose isn’t necessary to achieve a more durable and effective immune response,” Daley said.

Panelists added that future boosting plans for children this fall are still unclear, and thus, providing families access to boosters now is a time-sensitive, and important, decision.

Ultimately, the goal of the vaccines is to prevent severe illness and death, asserted Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, associate professor of medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Health Policy at Vanderbilt University, adding that the benefits of vaccinating children, to protect them against severe forms of COVID-19, are clear

“The goal is not to prevent all infections but to prevent severe illness and the data that was shown was quite good convincing that a third dose would decrease hospitalization, it would decrease MIS-C, it decreases post COVID. All of these are serious complications that children are having. And that’s why I really do believe we should be going in this direction,” Keipp Talbot said.

Some panelists expressed concern over the need for boosters in children ages 5 to 11 years old right now, given the fact that a large proportion of children have been recently infected with COVID-19 during the omicron surge.

Dr. Sarah S. Long, professor of pediatrics, Drexel University College of Medicine, asserted that with infection rates on the rise “now is not the time” to be boosting younger children.

“I think this is not the time to be giving boosts to 75% of children — I think the most of whom have had recent infections,” Long argued.

Other experts stressed that physicians and officials should still be focusing on vaccinating more children with their initial primary series, particularly given the nation’s recent increases in pediatric COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.

To date, just 43% of eligible children, ages 5 to 17 years old, have been fully vaccinated, according to federal data. An even smaller portion — less than 30% — of children ages 5 to 11 years old have been fully vaccinated, and would thus, be eligible for a booster shot.

In January, the FDA authorized the use of a booster dose in adolescents ages 12 through 15, with 3.7 million adolescents receiving a booster dose since then, according to the CDC.

Overall, 25.7 million children over the age of 5 — about half those eligible — remain completely unvaccinated, including 18.2 million children ages 5 to 11.

“Boosters are great once they’ve got everyone their first round and I think that needs to be a priority in this,” Keipp Talbot said.

Last week, more than 93,000 additional child COVID-19 cases were reported, an increase of about 76% from two weeks ago, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

The average number of pediatric hospital admission rates have increased by 70% in the last month, according to CDC data, and on average, nearly 180 virus-positive children are entering hospitals each day.

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(NEW YORK) — The world was “woefully” unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, and remains vulnerable to the next major “catastrophic” health crisis, a panel created by the World Health Organization concluded.

“COVID-19 is the 21st century’s Chernobyl moment — not because a disease outbreak is like a nuclear accident, but because it has shown so clearly the gravity of the threat to our health and well-being,” experts from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response wrote in a report, entitled “COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic,” released on Wednesday.

The panel, which is led by former New Zealand Prime Minister and UNDP chief Helen Clark and former Liberian President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, urged immediate action to avert the next pandemic, or else “we will condemn the world to successive catastrophes.”

“It has caused a crisis so deep and wide that presidents, prime ministers and heads of international and regional bodies must now urgently accept their responsibility to transform the way in which the world prepares for and responds to global health threats,” the panel said. “If not now, then when?”

The panel’s extensive investigation revealed “failures and gaps” in governments’ international and national responses, which ultimately failed to protect the public.

“Current institutions, public and private, failed to protect people from a devastating pandemic. Without change, they will not prevent a future one,” the group said.

Experts wrote they remain “deeply concerned” and “alarmed” about the persistently high and widespread levels of COVID-19 transmission across the globe, particularly given the possible emergence of new variants that could continue to “impose an intolerable burden on societies.”

“People are grieving the loss of their loved ones, and those with long-term health impacts from the disease continue to suffer,” the panel wrote. “It does not have to be this way.”

The panel called for immediate investment in pandemic preparedness measures, an improvement of surveillance systems, widespread plans to produce vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and supplies, and access to pandemic-related financial support.

With more than 5.7 billion people in the world over the age of 16, the panel stressed the critical need to support global vaccine access and equity, asserting that “this is not some aspiration for tomorrow — it is urgent, now.”

“Ending this pandemic as quickly as possible goes hand in hand with preparing to avert another one,” they wrote.

“As soon as a health threat or deadly outbreak fades from memory, complacency takes over in what has been dubbed a cycle of panic and neglect. This cycle must end.”

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(NEW YORK) — The dire shortage of baby formula has forced frustrated parents to scour social media for enough supplies to feed their children — their desperation now becoming a target for scammers seeking to exploit that distress.

An urgent new warning from the Federal Trade Commission is sounding the alarm that thieves have begun to swarm the shortage for their own illicit profit, “popping up online and tricking desperate parents and caregivers into paying steep prices for formula that never arrives.”

“Scammers exploiting the high demand for baby formula have sunk to new lows,” the bulletin says, warning that schemes may make fake websites or profiles on social media using product images and logos of household-name formula brands, “all to make you think you’re buying products from the companies’ official websites,” the FTC said.

The government agency’s alert marks the latest in a rapidly growing groundswell of similar cautions: seven states around the country are now advising parents to stay vigilant amid the formula frenzy.

“Parents of infants in North Carolina are struggling to feed their babies during the current baby formula shortage. But instead of helping parents in this perilous position, scammers are looking to take advantage of this crisis to steal a quick buck,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s office said Wednesday.

“Parents, feeling the pressures of the shortage, may find themselves scrambling to find alternative solutions but in the end could end up being scammed by unscrupulous bad actors online,” New York Secretary of State Robert J. Rodriguez said in a recent alert. “It is imperative that parents and guardians be aware of scams and know how to spot illegitimate online sales.”

“Anyone seeking to take advantage of this crisis in a manner that violates the law will be held accountable,” New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella said in an alert Wednesday, cautioning against buying formula from “untrusted or unfamiliar online sources,” and that families should “thoroughly research any online retailers that claim to be offering formula for sale via the Better Business Bureau.”

The Better Business Bureau told ABC News it has already been fielding complaints from parents who say they have been the victim of formula scams online — and issued their own alert earlier this month.

“Someone is claiming to sell that product and they are asking people to pay using a PayPal or Venmo or a cash app-type of system. And once that money is paid out, and the order is placed, they never end up receiving that product,” Sandra Guile, a BBB spokesperson, said.

Experts say scammers can appear legitimate — posting ads or commenting on reputable social media groups offering to sell formula — then disappear once they receive payment.

First-time mom Jessie Esparza-Wohlgemuth had scoured every store and social media group she could think of trying to find baby formula for her 6-month-old son, Elijah Matthew.

The shortage has made those precious cans hard to come by. Parents nationwide are confronted by barren grocery shelves and limits on how much they can buy at one time. Esparza-Wohlgemuth was starting to reach her wits’ end.

So when one person reached out online in late April offering what seemed like a great deal, she got excited — nearly two dozen cans of Nutramigen for a decent price — enough for Elijah and more to redistribute to other moms in the community. The would-be seller even sent along pictures of the available products.

Esparza-Wohlgemuth sent payment of nearly $300 and offered to send the seller a prepaid shipment label.

Then, the seller stopped responding to her messages, and those coveted cans never showed up.

“I realized, yeah, I just got scammed,” Esparza-Wohlgemuth told ABC News. “That moment when you feel like there’s a relief — and then you realize that you just got taken advantage of — that’s really hard. That’s $290 I could have spent on my own child, for diapers, wipes, clothes. It’s heartbreaking someone would do this to a little person and take advantage of the moms that are literally scrambling to find food for their babies.”

For enterprising fraudsters, families’ frenzy to feed their children amid the shortage has presented a ripe opportunity.

Tennessee mom Kate Fazio says she was scammed earlier this year. The person she tried to buy from even sent her a fake tracking number.

“The link that she sent was for something that had been delivered to California. It wasn’t baby formula. I never got my baby formula from her and she stopped responding to me pretty quickly after that,” Fazio said.

Fazio reported the scam to her local authorities, PayPal and to her bank, but saw no progress for months. She said she has seen other moms calling out the same fake seller for similar scams as recently as last week.

On Wednesday — after ABC News reached out to PayPal for comment — Fazio said her money was reimbursed “as a one-time goodwill gesture,” according to a message from the company to Fazio shared with ABC News.

ABC News reached out to PayPal, which confirmed it had refunded Fazio.

PayPal said its platform has a zero-tolerance policy for fraudulent activity and will shut down anyone attempting to defraud customers or who violate platform policies.

Experts advise that consumers using cash payment apps such as PayPal or Venmo should use the “goods and services” function for their transactions, which offers additional purchase protection. If a seller doesn’t deliver on what they’ve promised, the gipped buyer gets a refund.

Parents hunting for formula online should research who they’re buying from to make sure the seller is legitimate, experts say — even searching the company, person or product by typing their name with terms like “review,” “complaint” or “scam.”

Social media groups have offered a unique forum for families to crowdsource formula within their communities, but those groups have also offered easy marks for scammers to infiltrate. The Better Business Bureau says it may be a red flag if a seller advertising on social media is communicative until the payment is made, but once payment clears, they are unreachable.

“Think before you click. Be especially cautious about email solicitations and online ads on social media sites,” BBB’s formula scam alert says.

A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, told ABC News the company does not tolerate scam activity on any of its platforms, and that it actively reviews and removes suspicious activity.

Experts suggest keeping receipts from all transactions, and, when possible, use a credit card for the purchase, since that could provide more protection against fraud than other payment methods.

“That someone took advantage of me in a time where I’m already vulnerable, fearing not having enough to feed my kid, that made me feel even more vulnerable,” Fazio said. “As a mom, your number one goal is to take care of these kids. Keep them happy, keep them fed, keep them safe.”

Members of the public seeking to report suspected online shopping fraud can file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at BBB.org or report a scam at BBB.org/scamtracker.

Consumers can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at reportfraud.ftc.gov or call 877-FTC-HELP (382-4357).

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(NEW YORK) — A Massachusetts resident has tested positive for monkeypox, health officials confirmed Wednesday, making it the first case of the rare virus detected in the United States this year.

According to a release from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the patient is an adult male who recently traveled to Canada. The department completed initial testing Tuesday and was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The case poses no risk to the public, and the individual is hospitalized and in good condition,” MDPH stated in a press release. “DPH is working closely with the CDC, relevant local boards of health, and the patient’s health care providers to identify individuals who may have been in contact with the patient while he was infectious.”

It comes after four more cases of monkeypox were identified in the U.K recently, bringing the nationwide total to nine since the beginning of May.

Monkeypox is a rare disease caused by the monkeypox virus. The first case among humans was recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970, and the illness has since spread to several other nations, mostly in central and western Africa.

It can transmit from animals to humans when an infected animal — such as a rodent or a primate — bites or scratches a person. The CDC said humans can also be infected when hunting wild animals or preparing bush meat for consumption.

The disease can also spread from person to person via large respiratory droplets in the air, but they cannot travel more than a few feet, so two people would need to have prolonged close contact.

The most common symptoms are fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.

Very few cases of monkeypox have been identified among Americans.

According to the CDC, the disease does not naturally occur in the U.S. Infections are usually identified among people who recently traveled to countries where monkeypox is more commonly found.

In 2003, 47 confirmed and probable cases were reported in six U.S. states, the first human cases reported outside of Africa.

All the infections occurred after coming into contact with pet prairie dogs, which in turn became infected “after being housed near imported small mammals from Ghana,” the CDC stated.

Since then, just two other cases have been detected in the U.S., both associated with travel.

In July 2021, a case was confirmed in a Texas resident who had recently returned from Nigeria and in November 2021, another case was found in a Maryland resident who had also traveled to Nigeria.

ABC News’ William Gretsky contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and two years into a global pandemic that has highlighted the need for increased access to mental health care, 570 counties across the United States still have no psychologists, psychiatrists or counselors.

They’re known as mental health care deserts.

Most are considered rural, meaning your ability to access care may differ greatly depending on where you live.

“While this country has given resources for healthcare over the decades, it has never been enough,” said Dr. Saul Levin, chief executive officer and medical director for the American Psychiatric Association.

Rural areas, in particular, Levin said, “have not gotten the resources to keep up.”

Seventy-five percent of rural counties across the country have no mental health providers or fewer than 50 per 100,000 people, according to an ABC News analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.

A majority of counties with no or few providers per capita are located in the Midwest and Southeast regions of the U.S.

ABC News data journalists developed this interactive map showing the ratio of patients to providers in counties across the nation.

Problem worst in Texas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

The ABC News analysis shows Texas has the highest number of counties with no providers.

Texas Health and Human Services Public Information Officer Kelli Weldon explained in an email that the state has 39 local mental and behavioral health authorities providing care to residents.

Of the state’s 254 counties, 172 are considered rural, according to Weldon.

She wrote that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission “places a high priority on identifying mental health and substance use service availability at the right time and right place.”

The state is currently working on increasing access to mental health care for residents in rural areas with an initiative called All Texas Access, which includes efforts to decrease costs to local government for crisis care services and address incarceration of and the number of emergency room visits by people with mental illness.

The ABC News analysis also found that Nebraska (49.5%), North Dakota (49.1%) and South Dakota (47%) have the highest percentage of counties with no providers.

Laurie Gill, Cabinet secretary for the Department of Social Services in South Dakota, said the state faces infrastructure issues that can complicate access to mental healthcare.

“We are, I think, classified as a frontier state, and we have this challenge across many, many different avenues,” Gill told ABC News. “When we come to talking about mental health services, we want all South Dakotans, regardless of where they live, to have access to at least short-term comprehensive behavioral and mental health crisis stabilization. Our goal is to try to keep people as close to home as possible in the least restrictive settings that we can.”

The mental health care system in South Dakota, Gill said, operates mainly through contracting with 11 nonprofit community mental health centers located across the state, which provide services including therapy and crisis intervention. Each center serves multiple counties, meaning residents may not always have a center nearby.

In communities where accessing care is more difficult, Levin says, people may find their illnesses progress before they are able to receive it and, “the comorbidity is a lot more severe.”

Gill acknowledged that sometimes a lack of options at the local level has sometimes led to people in the state needing more intensive, inpatient psychiatric care, but said her department has been doing a gap analysis to identify needs in the mental healthcare system and fill them.

Native Americans at higher risk

Native Americans are also more likely to live in a mental health desert. South Dakota is home to nine tribes, and Native Americans make up about 9% of the state’s population, according to U.S. Census data for 2021.

Gill said the state recognizes this population struggles with a disproportionately high rate of suicide and is working on increasing access to mental healthcare on reservations.

Dr. Karen Severns, Behavioral Health Director for the Indian Health Service Great Plains Area, explained that more resources are needed to meet mental health care needs on reservations.

“Just in the last 2 years, the need for mental health and substance abuse services, they actually surged due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Severns said.

She explained that the trauma of the pandemic compounds on the historical trauma this population struggles with, adding to the need for care. As is the case across much of the nation, however, Severns said COVID enabled expanded access to telehealth services on reservations.

“We just need more resources and now that behavioral health has become the forefront not only within our community, but also nationally,” Severns said. “The biggest [challenge] is the stigma. There’s rural challenges as well, but people don’t want to go into a clinic, so we have seen high success when there was an audio [option] allowed for them to just touch base with their therapist.”

Special focus on young people

Concern has also been heightened recently for the mental health of young people in America, with the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy telling the Senate Finance Committee in February that the obligation to act is, “not just medical, it’s moral.”

Some organizations are working to address mental health impacts on youth, particularly amid the last two years of increased stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Save the Children, a nonprofit organization focused on improving outcomes for children through education, health care, and other avenues.

“One of the components to ensure that children are able to survive and thrive is to provide for their mental health,” said Greta Wetzel, Senior Advisor of Psychosocial Support for Save the Children. “[It’s by] providing those psychosocial support, social-emotional learning opportunities, that they are able to develop into that strong and holistic child and have it be able to thrive.”

One of the programs the organization provides is a psychosocial support program called “Journey of Hope,” which was designed to help children build resilience.

Cathryn Miller, West Virginia State Director for Save the Children, explained that the program has been very beneficial in her state, where many children and families struggle with things like poverty and substance abuse.

“I think it’s really important to remember that kids aren’t just little adults,” Miller said. “And so, when we as adults are struggling through the pandemic and a lot of these challenges we’re facing, it’s amplified for children.”

Director of ABC News Digital Journalism John Kelly contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Parents of babies on specialized baby formulas are continuing to sound the alarm as the nationwide formula shortage in the U.S. persists, three months after major manufacturer Abbott temporarily shuttered production at their Sturgis, Michigan, facility and pandemic supply chain issues compounded the growing problem.

It’s an urgent issue Emily and Mac Jaehnert know all too well. Their daughter, MacKenzie, needs a special type of baby formula, Similac’s NeoSure (made by Abbott), that’s intended for babies like MacKenzie who were born prematurely.

Mac Jaehnert told “Good Morning America” he’s had to scour store after store in his local region of Richland, Washington, to try to track down much-needed formula for MacKenzie.

“Every morning, I go through and I search online for all of the stores in the area that have local inventory available,” Mac Jaehnert said. “If I see one of them, I go to that store first. A lot of times, it’s unreliable. It’s probably 50-50 at best.”

He went on, “I’ve gotten lucky one or two times where I have found NeoSure on the shelf … that is where I just start my six-store run. And I’ll do that three or four times a week. Just go and find a store and then hit as many as you can on the way home to make sure that you haven’t missed an opportunity to find this food for your kid or potentially the food that could keep your neighbor’s kid out of similarly dire straits.”

MacKenzie was born three months early, at 27 weeks, and had to spend over 100 days in the neonatal intensive care unit before she became healthy enough to go home with her parents.

Mom Emily Jaehnert said the impact of the baby formula shortage on families like hers is not something many understand.

“If you’re not in the position that us and other parents are in, it’s really hard to understand just how serious and scary it is,” Emily Jaehnert said.

Mac Jaehnert put it another way. “Imagine all of the taps in your house have run dry, and now every bottle of water is off the shelf. It’s what it feels like,” he said.

People who assume MacKenzie can be breastfed or have substitute formula are not getting the full picture, Emily Jaehnert said.

“As a mom, as a woman, as somebody who, I have pumped and produced milk for MacKenzie, but I can’t anymore,” she told “GMA.” “And even if I could, she can’t have 100% breast milk. There’s a lot of people that do not understand the complexity behind feeding a medically complicated child.”

“Typical infant formulas, the ones that aren’t made for preemies will not provide her with the essentials that she needs,” she continued. “This is something that her doctors have put her on, it is not a choice we’ve necessarily made, it is something that is basically equivalent to a medication for her.”

The Jaehnerts, who live in Richland, Washington, have been on a mission to raise awareness for what MacKenzie and other preemies are facing ever since they brought their daughter home in March.

“There should be mechanisms in place to prevent this from happening,” Mac Jaehnert said. “Because this is mission critical for keeping this kid healthy and growing and out of the hospital right now.”

“It is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever experienced in my life,” he added. “I mean, we get this kid home, after what she’s been through … and the problem is, we can’t keep something as basic as baby formula on the shelf. It is disappointing to the point of angering.”

The couple say they’ve been able to secure enough NeoSure for MacKenzie for the time being, with the help of social media and MacKenzie’s grandfather, who shipped them some formula from Milwaukee, but tell “GMA” they know other families need critical help.

“We were lucky enough to find fellow parents on Facebook who had a preemie who had recently transitioned onto solid foods, and had a month’s supply worth of NeoSure formula that they were willing to share with us,” Mac Jaehnert said. “That was incredibly generous. So we’re doing everything we can to track things down in the area and provide it to other families in need, because I know of at least 10 families who have less than a week supply of NeoSure in this area.”

For other families in need, the Jaehnerts recommend starting with family and friends, going online and checking local resources like food banks for formula.

“There are Facebook groups that are popping up, ‘Find My Formula’ groups,” Mac Jaehnert said, but he also warned parents to be careful too. “This is very dangerous stuff, not getting it through an approved source. But you know, these are the times we’re in right now and parents are doing it if you can.”

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(NEW YORK) — As the nation’s COVID-19 resurgence reaches its highest point since mid-February, daily hospital admission levels and new COVID-19 related deaths in the U.S. are projected to continue increasing over the next four weeks, according to newly updated forecast models used by the CDC.

The forecast now predicts that nearly every U.S. state and territory is projected to see increases in new hospitalizations over the next two weeks.

Models also show that about 5,300 deaths will occur over the next two weeks. California, New York, Georgia and Florida are projected to see the largest death tolls in the weeks to come.

In the weeks after the U.S. surpassed 1 million confirmed COVID-19 related deaths, models estimate that a total of 1,010,800 fatalities will be recorded by June 11.

The projected increases come as infection rates continue to rise across the country, with a growing number of COVID-19 positive patients, once again, entering hospitals and requiring care, federal data shows.

There are now more than 24,300 virus-positive Americans currently receiving care in the U.S. — the highest total since mid-March, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Although totals remain significantly lower than during other parts of the pandemic, when there were more than 160,000 patients hospitalized with the virus, more than 3,000 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day — an average that has increased by 18.7% in the last week, and approximately doubled in the last month.

Admission levels are now on the rise in every region of the country, and the number of virus-related emergency room visits are now at their highest point since February.

Pediatric hospital admissions have also increased by about 70% over the last month.

Nationally, new infection rates have reached their highest point in nearly three months. An average of 94,000 new cases are being officially reported each day, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. In the last six weeks, new cases nationally have nearly quadrupled.

In the last week alone, the U.S. has reported nearly 660,000 new cases.

President Joe Biden’s new coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, acknowledged during a White House press briefing on Wednesday that the U.S. is currently seeing “a lot of infections,” which he said is largely the result of highly infectious omicron subvariants spreading across the country.

“Right now, [there are] some areas of increased infection and hospitalization in the Northeast and Eastern corridor as well as in the Upper Midwest,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday. “But we’ve seen with prior increases, different waves of infection have demonstrated that this travels across the country and has the potential to travel across the country.”

The Northeast remains the nation’s most notable COVID-19 hotspot. Many of the states with the highest case rate per capita over the last week — Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, and New York — are located in the Northeast. Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Hawaii, have also all seen high case rates.

According to the CDC’s community levels, 32% of Americans live in an area with a medium or high COVID-19 community level. Since the prior week, an additional 8% of the US population is living in a county with the medium or high COVID-19 community level, Walensky reported.

The high community level suggests there is a “high potential for healthcare system strain” and a “high level of severe disease,” and thus, the CDC recommends that people wear a mask in public indoor settings, including schools.

Officials noted that with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available, most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.

“We know that the number of infections is actually substantially higher than that. It’s hard to know exactly how many but we know that a lot of people are getting diagnosed using home tests,” Jha explained.

However, even with the rise in infections and hospitalizations, Jha stressed that the U.S. is “in way better place than where we were two years ago,” thanks to key tools such as vaccines, therapeutics and testing access.

“We’ve got to keep using [those tools] as the virus evolves and as the virus continues to do what it’s doing,” Jha said, noting that he remains concerned about the U.S. outlook for the fall and winter, as he reiterated his call for Congress to approve $22.5 billion in COVID-19 funding.

“There’s a range of models out there of what we might see in the fall and winter,” Jha said. “We have got a plan for a range of scenarios…we have to plan for a scenario where we don’t get any more resources from Congress. I think it’d be terrible. I think we’d see a lot of unnecessary loss of life, if that were to happen. But we’re looking at all the scenarios, and planning for all of them.”

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