The Biden government said Wednesday it was authorizing commercial labs to conduct monkey pox tests in a bid to dramatically expand testing as the United States faces a record outbreak that experts fear is far higher than the official 156 cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began sending test kits to five commercial lab companies this week, allowing healthcare providers to order lab tests directly by early July. Companies include Quest Diagnostics, Sonic Healthcare, Labcorp, Mayo Clinic Laboratories and Aegis Sciences. “By dramatically expanding the number of test sites across the country, we enable anyone who needs to be tested to do so,” Health and Human Services Minister Xavier Becerra said in a press release. Officials say the move could allow the nation to conduct tens of thousands of tests a week, rather than relying solely on a national network of public laboratories that can conduct more than 8,000 tests a week. But federal officials acknowledge that they can do much more testing. The United States has passed about 10 tests a day in early June in 60 tests a day last week, a senior Biden government official told the Washington Post. “This is a relative increase, but it is not close to where we want to be,” said an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he had been asked by the administration to answer questions about response to monkey pox. Some public health experts say that the failure of more tests hinders the ability to detect the extent of the epidemic and reduce it. Experts: US repeats mistakes in covid trials with monkey pox Under the current system, clinicians must report suspected monkeypox infections to health officials who decide if the cases meet the criteria to be tested in public laboratories. Critics say the process, which could involve calling public health hotlines and answering extensive questionnaires, can be slow and cumbersome, preventing doctors from seeking examinations. Smallpox causes damage and rashes that can be confused with other diseases such as herpes and syphilis. Health officials say the patients’ recent symptoms were different from previous cases, including rashes concentrated around the genitals and without a fever. To control monkey pox, providers must send a swab of a rash to a public laboratory that can determine if the patient has been infected with a monkey pox virus, referring to the family of viruses that includes monkey pox. A positive result is considered to be monkey pox because it is not known that another orthopedic virus is circulating in the United States and is being sent to the CDC for confirmatory testing. Monkey smallpox dilemma: How to warn gay men without feeding the stigma Activists and public health experts who have pushed for extensive testing say the Biden government should have facilitated testing in commercial laboratories weeks earlier, before the epidemic worsened. The test used was developed by the CDC and approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration. Prior to making the test widely available in commercial laboratories, the CDC had to update these licenses, enter into agreements with the five laboratories, and ensure that staff had personal protective equipment and vaccinations to protect against infection, according to a senior public health official. who also spoke on the condition of anonymity according to the basic rules of the Biden government. FDA officials in recent weeks have begun coordinating with companies that make parts of test kits for smallpox monkeys to increase production, according to a service official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. their. With more than 3,000 cases of smallpox reported in dozens of countries, the World Health Organization is meeting Thursday to discuss the designation of an emergency public health outbreak of international concern.
