The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance recommending that TPoxx, the only drug available to treat monkeypox antiviral be limited to people at high risk for severe disease even as the outbreak that has infected more than 22,000 Americans shows signs of plateauing.

New CDC guidance Only high-risk groups should get monkeypox antiviral

Recently released data from the Food and Drug Administration suggest that broad use of TPoxx “could promote resistance and render the antivirals ineffective for some patients,” the CDC said in a statement Thursday. The antiviral, prescribed to tens of thousands of monkeypox patients, is approved for the related smallpox virus. Its use against monkeypox is considered experimental and tightly controlled by federal officials, although there is growing evidence that it benefits many patients.But advocates who have called for TPoxx to be more widely available criticized the government’s guidance as too hasty, given ongoing unequal access to vaccination and treatment for a disease that spreads by close contact, including sex. monkeypox antiviral, There’s a theoretical concern that monkeypox virus may rapidly evolve resistance to TPoxx but right now, that’s a theoretical concern,” said James Krellenstein, co-founder of PrEP4All, a group that advocates access to HIV care.

“We need to see more concrete steps from both the [National Institutes of Health] and CDC to determine how much of a threat it actually is, through much better research and surveillance.At a White House monkeypox antiviral briefing Thursday, Anthony S. Fauci, medical adviser to President Biden, said resistance is always a risk when using antiviral drugs. He said a recently launched study of TPoxx will track signs of mutation that could lead to resistance. The study is expected to enroll more than 500 patients across 60 U.S. sites. The updated guidance on TPoxx use comes at a time when the growth of new monkeypox cases is dropping in the United States and abroad as vaccination and education campaigns have improved, and individuals curbed risky sexual behaviors linked to spread, public health officials said. New cases in the United States have dropped nearly 50 percent since the peak in early August.

Source: This news is originally published by washingtonpost

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