Physicians’ struggles to prescribe Tpoxx, an antiviral approved to treat smallpox, which is from the same family of viruses as monkeypox, are among a slew of obstacles related to testing, treatment and vaccination that experts say is contributing to a plodding national response that they fear is not keeping up with the virus’s spread. Some worry that the window is closing to prevent the virus from becoming permanently entrenched in this country, with more than 1,400 confirmed infections across 42 states — and hundreds or thousands of additional infections suspected, predominantly in the gay and bisexual community.
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Infectious-disease physicians and experts also have continued to call for relaxing the barriers that have limited Tpoxx prescriptions, such as collecting multiple kinds of specimens and photographs from each patient, as well as scheduling four visits. The antiviral designed to treat smallpox was tested on animals, narrowly approved by FDA and stored in the national emergency stockpile. CDC officials partly imposed their restrictions on the treatment to ensure they could study the rare cases — until this year — when Tpoxx might be needed.
“Making every physician for every patient go through hours and hours of paperwork and back and forth with the agencies, that’s just not a sustainable approach,” said Jezek of the Infectious Diseases Society. “We know that there are a lot of patients that are missing out entirely on treatment, or getting serious delays in treatment as a result.”
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