U.S. President Joe Biden said, on Sunday, that the monkeypox outbreak is something "everybody should be concerned about", adding that U.S. health officials are looking into possible treatments and vaccines.
"We’re working on it hard to figure out what we do," Biden told reporters at an airbase in South Korea before departing on Air Force One for Japan.
Biden pointed out that the monkeypox— identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) in at least 12 countries where the relatively rare disease is not endemic — could be “consequential” if it continues.
Health advisers “haven’t told me the level of exposure yet, but it is something that everybody should be concerned about,” he added. “It is a concern in that if it were to spread it would be consequential.”
On his part, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the United States has vaccines available to treat a potential monkeypox outbreak and that Biden has been briefed on the case tracks domestically and abroad. “He’s being apprised of this on a very regular basis,” Sullivan said, briefing journalists Sunday on Air Force One after departing South Korea.
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