i'm joined now by dr raj punjabi senior
director of the national security
council leading the white house's
pandemic office and doctor help me
triangulate this a little bit the
president raised the alarm about monkey
pox then he softened his statements a
little bit this morning what's the
reality of this outbreak and just how
worried should americans be about it
thank you garrett and thanks for having
me on the president is
really ensuring we stay vigilant we've
taken infectious diseases seriously from
the beginning of this administration on
day one the president
restored the pandemic preparedness
office that i leave now and we are
monitoring and responding to infectious
disease threats including this one when
it comes to risk to the general public
we know that risk is low and that's
because the current number of cases of
the cases we've seen so far
all have been less severe and we know
that we have as the president said
vaccines available for this disease it's
not a new disease it's spreading in new
ways in new places and quite suddenly
but we have vaccines and we have
treatments
can you talk about that spread a little
bit i think that's one of the things
that people have the most questions
about you're somebody who's got
first-hand experience treating this
disease how does it spread how
contagious is it or do we know with this
current outbreak
so the disease presents with flu-like
symptoms in most patients and the rash
can develop it usually resolves in two
to four weeks it's direct contact with
the rash the skin lesions themselves
that is the most
normal way or major way that this
transmits from people to people and
that's what we worry about so this is
not asymptomatic transmission as we saw
with covid which
and it's also not as contagious as covid
is you have to have contact directly
with the person who has the symptoms and
as you can imagine the pictures are
showing now
the rash itself is quite apparent
you're the pandemic preparedness guy we
have a plan for this what does a plan
for a u.s response look like should this
uh become worse
yeah there are a few things we're doing
immediately
as soon as we knew there were new cases
reported first in the uk a few weeks ago
we had already mobilized our colleagues
at the departments and agencies the
cdc'd department of health and human
services to start to work procure to
procure sufficient amounts of vaccines
and treatments so that's number one
number two we're working with state and
local actors i was just in touch with
the doctors at the hospital in boston
this weekend to ensure that they have
the testing capability available and
also that they have the guidance of how
to use the vaccine for those providers
with the highest risk and i'm happy to
report that as of yesterday they already
have the vaccine available and are
offering it to the health care providers
who were exposed to the first patient so
that's what we have to do garrett with
this it's science based
to stop and end this outbreak we've got
to find those infected
ensure they get isolated and have the
treatment and care that are that they
need and then ensure that those who are
exposed get the vaccines they need if we
do that again and again that's what's
pos that's what makes possible ending
this outbreak and that's what's worked
before we had an outbreak in 2003
and the same approach of of ensuring
we're identifying and supporting
patients that uh we're con we're tracing
their contacts enlisting those who've
been exposed and making sure we're
monitoring them
that's what brought the 2003 outbreak in
this country under control
um this is effectively the smallpox
vaccine that we use right is there any
reason to think that for younger folks
who weren't vaccinated against smallpox
this could be more serious older folks
less so i mean talk to me about the kind
of relation to smallpox here and what
people should know about that
yeah so so think of monkeypox as a as a
in the same family of viruses as
smallpox but a much less severe
type of disease so smallpox had a higher
mortality rate this disease has a death
rate of less than one percent and that's
in countries with weaker healthcare
systems uh i've worked in liberia before
this as you were mentioning and uh you
know that we didn't have access to
vaccines there we have access to
vaccines and treatments here and that
makes the risk substantially lower the
vaccine you mentioned smallpox vaccine
is one type of vaccine that's available
for for dealing with monkey pox there's
also a vaccine that's been licensed
for both smallpox and monkeypox that's
called genios and that is quite
effective especially when given within
four days of an exposure to a patient
with monkey pox
um doc i would be remiss not to ask you
about covid while i have you here we're
two years on now and i'm just curious
if you worry about the distrust you know
you talk about the science earlier the
distrust that some people have for the
medical community during the pandemic if
it makes it harder for you guys as
you're trying to kind of keep battling
with covid now while with the other hand
potentially worried about this other
disease as well
well on the one hand it's made people a
lot more aware of infectious diseases
and you know even the conversation we're
having now is is about how the virus
transmits who can get sick how many
deaths it causes some some way the
public's very aware of course with that
awareness comes anxiety and fear and i
think the approach of this
administration is is science-based
empathy-based and transparency-based we
have already as i mentioned started to
work with local state and international
health officials to make sure vaccines
and treatments are available to patients
that we have testing available so we
identify more cases the cdc's put out an
alert on friday already to all doctors
in the country to ensure that we're
finding cases and reporting them and of
course we're working with international
partners to figure out the source of
this outbreak and
so we can try to stop it you know we
will continue to remain engaged
transparently with the public and we
want you to know that if you're worried
about this and you are afraid you have
symptoms reach out to your providers we
do have solutions for this this is not
like covid where it took
some time before we had countermeasures
vaccines and treatments we have that now
for this disease
great dr raj punjabi thank you for
coming on and sharing your expertise
with us
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