The Biden administration on Thursday announced it is declaring monkeypox a public health emergency, a move intended to speed up the distribution of the vaccines and expand testing as the outbreak continues to spread.

“This public health emergency will allow us to explore additional strategies to get vaccines and treatments more quickly out to impacted communities,” Fenton told reporters.

The rapid spread — more than 1,200 cases have been reported in the last three days — has ratcheted up pressure on the Biden administration to declare the outbreak a public health emergency, as critics and health experts accuse the White House of failing to mount an aggressive push to distribute treatments and vaccines.

“We’re considering an approach for the current doses of Jynneos that would allow health care providers to use an existing one dose vial of the vaccine to administer a total of up to five separate doses.”

The World Health Organization on July 23 declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern

Federal health officials in recent weeks had debated whether to declare monkeypox a public health emergency

But LGBTQ groups focused on the monkeypox response have voiced support for declaring the outbreak an emergency

And senior health officials ultimately concluded that the emergency declaration could unlock new authorities that might speed distribution of vaccines and treatments for monkeypox that have so far been in short supply