HOUSTON, Texas — Houston family physician Dr. Abel Flores is currently treating someone with a suspected case of monkeypox.
“We are currently working on receiving the testing supplies so I can test my patient," Dr. Flores said.
But he says the process to get them tested has been frustrating.
“I think that we need to all be on the same page," Dr. Flores said.
Doctors across the country have a lot of questions on how to handle the current monkeypox outbreak.
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a call where doctors and nurses could get answers about the virus and vaccine. During the meeting, the CDC said it's doing a phased approach to vaccine allocation:
- Phase 1 delivered 56,000 doses in June
- Phase 2 delivered 240,000 doses throughout July.
- Phase 3 will deliver more than 750,000 doses to health departments across the country very soon
The CDC says it expects to make 1.9 million doses available through the rest of the year, but the recommendations are still the same — only those with known exposure to monkeypox can get the vaccine.
The CDC says its also making it easier for doctors to provide TPOXX, a treatment for patients with monkeypox. It's something Wesley Wallace said he would’ve gladly taken when he tested positive.
“But the pain really is the biggest issue of all. You can manage the flu-like symptoms, but there are people who have the lesions on their skin. And they say I can’t lay down and I can't go to sleep because it hurts to touch anything. And so they don’t get rest," Wallace said.
Texas is now up to 231 cases of monkeypox as of July 26, which is the 6th highest case count in the country. The Houston region has 67 confirmed cases of monkeypox, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.