Monkeypox vaccines will arrive in Western Australia within days, after the state recorded its first case of the disease in a traveler returning from overseas.
Key points:
- Monkey pox vaccines to arrive in WA in a week
- Experts say the risk of a monkeypox outbreak in WA is low
- The number of active COVID cases in the state continues to decline
During the coming week, around 1,300 doses will be made available, and distribution will be concentrated in priority groups.
“Sexual health clinics are the likely place where this will happen,” said WA Health Deputy Chief Executive Paul Armstrong.
Armstrong said a list of vaccination priorities is still being developed, but would likely target people at higher risk of infection and immunocompromised groups.
“It’s a very scarce vaccine worldwide … there’s only a very small amount, so we have to be very careful in how we prepare the priority list,” he said.
About 60 cases of monkeypox have been detected in Australia so far. (Reuters)
The federal government announced Thursday that it had secured nearly half a million third-generation monkeypox vaccines.
More portions of these vaccines are expected to arrive in WA in September and next year.
“Low risk” of spreading out of control
Both experts and authorities say monkeypox is unlikely to spread out of control in WA because of the low risk of transmission.
“In Western Australia, our health advice is that it’s very, very low risk,” Premier Mark McGowan said.
Health authorities say WA’s only recorded case is currently isolated and contact tracing is mostly complete.
The disease is spread through close physical contact and body fluids, making the risk of spread much lower than diseases like COVID and the flu, according to infectious disease expert Dr. Paul Griffin.
“We shouldn’t necessarily be concerned about that … we’re asking people to self-isolate, and that’s enough to prevent their chances of transmission,” he told ABC Radio Perth.
“The most important thing, again, is just that awareness. We have to have the general public to know the type of symptoms and the risk factors.”
Dr. Paul Griffin says vigilance is key to limiting the spread of monkeypox. (ABC News: Patrick Rocca)
Initial symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle pain, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion, and a rash that may look like pimples or blisters.
About 60 cases have been detected in Australia.
Good news for COVID: researchers
As WA prepares to face the possibility of another illness, experts said the state’s COVID caseload was likely to continue to fall in the coming weeks.
Researchers at the Telethon Kids Institute generated a simulation tool to map COVID outbreaks and said they predicted WA’s case numbers would continue to decline.
Researchers at the Telethon Kids Institute visualized how WA’s latest Omicron outbreak spread. (Provided by: Telethon Kids Institute)
“The daily case numbers here in WA have been falling steadily over the last fortnight … our model predicts this trend will continue until the end of August,” Dr Ewan Cameron told ABC Radio Perth.
“Our best guess for this is that it’s a combination of immunity from our high vaccination rates, with some degree of acquired immunity from past infections.
“We think that, at least with the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, they’re not going to give us much more edge beyond what they already have in the last few weeks.”
WA’s health minister says she doubts the winter spate that just happened will be WA’s last bout with COVID.
“I suspect there will be another wave at some point. What that is and what it looks like, we don’t know,” said Amber-Jade Sanderson.
WA’s daily infections have fluctuated between 3000 and 4000, but Dr Cameron said the model saw the number of cases could fall below 2000 by the end of August.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID has declined since the mid-400s, with 351 cases in the hospital, and the model suggests the decline could continue, eventually settling in the 200 range.
WA COVID-19 Instant
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Confirmed cases so far: 1,082,485
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Active cases: 20,872
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Cases in hospital: 351
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Dead: 516
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Third dose, WA population over 16: 83.4%.
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Fourth dose: 26.5 percent
Latest information from the WA Department of Health
However, Dr Cameron admitted that the modeling did not take into account a number of unknowns, including the potential for new variants and the impact of voluntary mask use.
“It’s very difficult to assess precisely what the impact of this is, so that would be one of the uncertainties in the model,” he said.
The researchers were unable to fully solve the puzzle of hospital cases increasing far out of proportion to the number of cases.
According to Dr. Cameron, there was not much evidence to support understatement as a reason.
“We think there is a lot more transmission among the elderly residents here, who are the most susceptible to the virus and the most likely to end up in the hospital,” he said.
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