Posted on: 23 August 2022
CNWL’s Sexual Health team at Mortimer Market Centre are set to begin a pilot offering eligible patients smaller but equally effective doses of the monkeypox vaccine, stretching existing supplies to protect more people.
The safe and clinically-approved approach, known as ‘fractional dosing’, has been commonly used in other worldwide outbreaks when vaccine supplies are constrained.
There is a limited number of bookable appointments for eligible patients only, due the limited supply of monkeypox vaccine available. To help ensure people at highest risk of monkeypox can get a vaccine, please do not book if you are not eligible. Over time, as supplies increase vaccines will be offered to more people.
For our available appointments, please click here. Please note, there are no walk-in appointments available.
Mark Maguire, CNWL’s Service Director for Sexual Health and HIV Services says: “The pilot will be introduced at three NHS sites, including Mortimer Market Centre, and our nurses need to be specially trained to deliver this new approach, so it will take some time to ramp up.”
CNWL Sexual Health nurses at Mortimer Market Centre undergoing training.
Fractional dosing could maximise the number of doses that can be administered without compromising protection, with clinical study results showing it provides a near-identical immune response in patients.
Under the approach, eligible people aged 18 and over will be offered a 0.1ml dose of the smallpox Jynneos vaccine, instead of the 0.5ml dose that is typically administered. This will potentially enable up to a 5-fold increase in the number of people that can be offered vaccination.
Fractional dosing has recently been authorised in the US by the Federal Drug Administration for its own monkeypox response. The European Medicines Agency Emergency Task Force has also approved the approach.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has reviewed the evidence in detail alongside the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and is now working with NHS England to test the feasibility of the approach at pilot clinics at CNWL, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, and Locala Health and Wellbeing in Greater Manchester.
In a letter to Directors of Public Health, UKHSA chief executive Professor Dame Jenny Harries has confirmed the details of the pilot, with data gathered by the clinics used to inform planning for possible wider use when more doses of the vaccine arrive in the UK.
More information can be found in this briefing from UKHSA.