being used against monkeypox was originally developed for smallpox and the european medicines agency said earlier this week it was beginning to evaluate whether the shot should be authorized for monkeypox the who has said supplies of the vaccine made by bavarian nordic are extremely limitedsome countries including the uk and germany have already begun vaccinating people at highrisk of monkeypox the uk recently widened its immunization program to offer the shot to mostly gay and bisexual men who have multiple sexual partners and are thought to be most vulnerableuntil may monkeypox had never been known to cause large outbreaks beyond africa where the disease is endemic in several countries and mostly causes limited outbreaks when it jumps to people from infected wild animalsto date there have been about 1800 suspected monkeypox cases including more than 70 deaths in africa vaccines have never been used to stop monkeypox outbreaks in africathe whos africa office said this week that countries with vaccine supplies are mainly reserving them for their own populations