On Wednesday, Nov.9th, the Oregon Health Authority demobilized its incident management team responding to the monkeypox outbreak. Cases of the viral disease, which has predominantly impacted LGBTQ people, have declined dramatically.
Starting next week, Oregon public health officials will be calling people who received the first dose of the monkeypox virus vaccine to help them get their second dose.
Deputy State Epidemiologist Dr. Tom Jeanne said the move was made because there have only been two to three new monkeypox cases per week for the last month.
“By no means are we (Oregon Health Authority) declaring victory against monkeypox,” he said. “The virus continues to circulate in our community although at a significantly lower rate than we saw in the early days of the outbreak this summer.”
Jeanne said there are currently 241 cases of monkeypox, an increase of 11 over the last four weeks. By comparison- at the peak of the outbreak- health officials were diagnosing 10 to 15 cases each week.
Nearly 11,000 first doses of monkeypox vaccine have been administered and Jeanne added health partners continue outreach to get second doses into all who got the first shot.
