* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised its monkeypox alert to a Level 2, encouraging people to "practice enhanced precautions" to stem the outbreak. Cases have reached over 26,000 globally and have been found in more than 80 countries as well as in all but two U.S. states. The majority of cases are currently in Europe, although the United States has more cases (over 7,000) than any other country. On July 23, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox an international public health emergency.

* U.S. states with the highest numbers of cases are California, New York, Illinois, and Florida, according to the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/us-map.html. On August 4, the United States declared monkeypox a public health emergency.

* The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced in June that it would send 56,000 doses of the Food and Drug Administration-approved monkeypox vaccine (Bavarian Nordic's Jynneos) to states with high rates of transmission, with an additional 240,000 doses planned to be distributed over the summer. Officials expect to make at least 1.6 million doses available by the end of the fall.