CHATHAM COUNTY, Ga. – Starting Monday, people in Southeast Georgia can receive the Monkeypox vaccine.
The Coastal Health District (CHD) is now offering monkeypox vaccinations -- to people at an increased risk for the virus -- at its main office on Eisenhower Drive as the infectious disease case number continues to climb in the state of Georgia.
Doctors said most cases are from skin-to-skin contact.
News4JAX spoke to the University of Arizona’s Clinical Assistant Professor, Dr. Vandana Vhide, about the vaccine’s accessibility.
“The vaccine actually can work up to four days after you’ve been exposed,” Dr. Vandana Vhide, University of Arizona’s Clinical Assistant Professor, said. “Versus it also works if you take it before you’re exposed. But most people, at least at this point, it’s typically what we call post-exposure prophylaxis. So it’s people who have been exposed. And we’re trying to prevent them from having the illness.”
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Currently, appointments for monkeypox vaccination are only available at the Chatham County Health Department’s main clinic in Savannah at 1395 Eisenhower Drive. You must have an appointment – there is no walk-up availability.
The CHD is making the vaccination available to individuals who are 18 and older and who fit the following criteria:
- Individual is a gay male, a bisexual male, or a male that has sex with other males.
- Individual has had a sexual partner in the past 14 days who has received a monkeypox diagnosis OR had multiple sexual partners in the past 14 days in an area with known monkeypox.
- Individual currently does NOT have signs or symptoms consistent with a monkeypox infection (fever, headache, muscle ache, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills, exhaustion, or a rash/blisters on the face, inside of the mouth, or on other parts of the body).
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