French Health Minister François Braun has said the government has opened about 100 vaccination centres for monkeypox so far and that more than 6,000 people have received a preventive vaccination.
The health minister said on Monday that about 1,700 people have been infected with monkeypox in France.
Most of the infections have been in the Paris region, he said, adding that a dedicated major vaccination centre would open in the capital this week.
He said more staff would be mobilised to provide “extra support” and that medical students would soon be trained to administer jabs.
Braun said he did not see a major threat for the general public and said the government would focus its vaccination campaign on target groups considered the most at risk.
He called on patients who have lesions or other symptoms to self-isolate as soon as possible.
More vaccines needed
"The profile (of the patients) is that they are mainly men who have had sexual relations with other men, but one can also be infected by contact with a patient's blisters," Braun said in an interview with BFM TV in which he gave the number of infections.
“We have easily enough doses for the populations who are the most at risk from this illness,” Braun added.
Paris town hall on Monday called for emergency measures from the state in order to obtain more vaccine doses and extra personnel to administer the vaccine in the capital.
The Greens MP representing health Anne Souyris said that the 30,000 doses earmarked by the health ministry were far from enough for prevention.
"We would need 10 times this amount to vaccinate all the people at risk in the Ile-de-France region," she told France Info.
LGBT umbrella group Inter-LGBT said there was a “lack of preparation and of transparency from the government” and raised concerns over difficulties making vaccine appointments and “insufficient deliveries of vaccine doses”.
First detection in 1970
The World Health Organization said on Saturday that the rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak represents a global health emergency.
So far this year, there have been more than 16,000 cases of monkey pox in more than 75 countries, and five deaths in Africa.
The viral disease has been spreading chiefly in men who have sex with men in the recent outbreak, outside Africa where it is endemic.
A viral infection resembling smallpox and first detected in humans in 1970, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980.
Ninty-five percent of cases have been transmitted through sexual activity, according to a study of 528 people in 16 countries published in the New England Journal of Medicine -- the largest research to date.
The first symptoms of monkeypox are fever, headaches, muscle pain and back pain during the course of five days.
Rashes subsequently appear on the face, the palms of hands and soles of feet, followed by lesions, spots and finally scabs.
(with newswires)
