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World, a third of the cases, confirmed cases in the united states. just think about that. were less than 4% of the worlds population and we have about a third of the confirmed cases. now, there may be other places that arent testing as much, but that is still a significant disparity overall. when you look at the plan that john just laid out, these vaccine doses, 1.8 million doses, and then also making sure that you have plenty of the antiviral t-pox available, some 50,000 doses, thats important....

Is really, really dramatic and must be dealt with immediately. >> and then, joe, add to it the fact that getting a test is not an easy thing. a vaccine, it seems like, you know, there are less vaccines than, i dont know. it just seems like, what needs to be done now? >> yeah, thats a great question. you know, we are behind. and we are behind at first because we didnt test early. we didnt scale testing in this epidemic until mid-july. that has improved somewhat. we see people who need tests are g...

Patients have actually been treated with the medication. what is the level of awareness of t-pox? >> i think its minimal. this is a disease that disperses in the gay community. >> reporter: in many ways, the story of tpoxx is a remarkable one. years ago, out of a concern that smallpox could one day be weaponized, the federal government stockpiled more than 1.7 million doses. but even in the middle of this new outbreak, getting those doses to those in need has been a real challenge. >> youre talk...

Auto inoculate his eye. >> reporter: turns out about 25% of people infected with monkeypox do develop lesions around their eyes, and if the infection spreads to their cornea, it can cause blindness. >> that was what pushed me to treat him. >> reporter: thats right. there is a treatment for monkeypox. its an antiviral known as t-pox. its been approved since 2018 in the united states to treat smallpox. thats a virus in the same family as monkeypox. and recent studies have now shone effectiveness a...

How effective is it, and how broad a danger do you see monkeypox in this country right now? >> well, i mean, with regard to the second question, it is hard to know because we -- like weve heard with covid for the past couple of years, we still probably dont have enough testing here. when you cite these numbers just under 5,000, those are confirmed cases. theres a lot of people who still probably have not been tested. so this is sort of the nature of trying to keep track of these outbreaks in ter...

Procedure thats required for getting access to t-pox. >> was it difficult to get access? >> definitely. you have to have a high suspicion or a positive monkeypox test in order to get it, and it requires hours and hours of paperwork for the doctors, actually, to get it from the national stockpile. for people who arent connected to academic medical centers like me its difficult to get this even if youre in severe pain. >> what more do you think the administration can do as we discussed at the top ...

Monkeypox. >> okay. so once you were prescribed that, what did the treatment entail? >> its a 14-day course you have to take with a fatty meal to help with the absorption. within two days of getting the treatment i started to feel better and hatch of my lesions started to disappear rather than progressing to scabs like it normally does. getting the drug was a complicated process a lot of people are not able to do, unfortunately. >> that brings me to the letters and the outreach that you have don...

Supports in place for people who have to leave their jobs. >> whats the treatment, dr. patel? >> there is a treatment reserved for more severe cases. the treatment that im personally familiar with are self-limited. they can be very painful rashes. were reserving the treatment, its called t-pox. were reserving that for more severe cases. its an oral treatment that you dont need to take at home but by and large most cases resolve on their own but it can be be very painful going through this with a...

As well as other viruses circulating in new york city. >> is there any truth to that whatsoever? dr. michael? no, its a hyperbolic overreaction. you know, it was a case of monkeypox in dallas last summer paper by birao and colleagues are published april of 2020 two. a man from africa, he has lots of contact. he went to atlanta. dallas wasas all over the place, finally hospitalized. he was treated with the drug t pox t government.t. it works fine. but the important thing, laura , they did all the...

And we need to get back in the room then be talking about this. the way this is being done right now, the president has dug in. i will say what i dont understand is when the senate passed a bill two weeks ago identical to a bill that passed the house, both of them come in the senate it 98 to two. why cant we reopen the government? gillian: you say -- you say the liability for the president but its also true democrats have the house. the longer this goes on, the shutdown, the more reliability thi...