(CNN) –– The administration of President Joe Biden is preparing to move forward with its plan to split doses of monkeypox vaccine to expand a limited supply, two people familiar with the decision said. The measure would authorize providers to use a fifth of the vaccine by injection, according to the sources.
The White House is expected to announce a new emergency declaration on monkeypox on Tuesday afternoon. This action would allow providers to inject one-fifth of the currently authorized dose into the skin, rather than a full dose into the underlying fat.
The move would come less than a week after the Biden administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency, giving the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and to other government health agencies more flexibility to combat the spread of the virus.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said last week that the agency was considering a plan to “stretch” doses.
“We are evaluating an approach to current doses of Jynneos, which would authorize health care providers to use one vial of a current dose of the vaccine to administer a total of up to five different doses,” Califf said Thursday.
As of Monday, the US government had shipped 617,693 doses of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine to states and jurisdictions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that at least 1.5 million people in the country are eligible to receive the vaccine.
The new plan would expand the supply of monkeypox vaccines
The monkeypox vaccine is currently administered in two doses subcutaneously, that is, under the skin. But the amount of the dose could be reduced by applying it intradermally, “which basically stays on the skin; it doesn’t go through the skin,” explained Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University.
The strategy of using a lower dose and applying it with intradermal injection has already been implemented in vaccines against influenza and rabies, epidemiologist Dr. Jay Varma previously told CNN.
“The skin has special cells that are very good at helping a vaccine stimulate the body’s immune system,” he wrote.
These cells, called dendritic cells, are better able to mount an immune response, Griffin noted.
“They live on the skin and are better at teaching the immune system what to respond to,” he added.
“If you can give the monkeypox vaccine intradermally, you can have a smaller dose… They would just need some kind of demonstration that you get the same immune response,” he added.
Brenda Goodman and Virginia Langmaid, both of CNN, contributed to this report.
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