Biden names FEMA, CDC officials to head monkeypox response

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to name top officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to serve as the White House coordinators to combat the growing monkeypox outbreak.

The White House said Biden will announce Tuesday that he has tapped Robert Fenton, who helped lead FEMA's mass vaccination effort for COVID-19 as the agency's acting administrator when Biden first took office, as the White House coordinator. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis of the CDC will be named his deputy. Daskalakis, the director of the agency's HIV prevention division and a national expert on issues affecting the LGBTQ community, previously helped lead New York City's COVID-19 response.

The White House said the pair would coordinate “strategy and operations to combat the current monkeypox outbreak, including equitably increasing the availability of tests, vaccinations and treatments.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and Biden's top science adviser, praised their appointments Monday night and said he hoped they would tighten the coordination between the various federal agencies involved in the monkeypox response.

“I personally think we’re dealing with a really serious issue here," Fauci said. "There are a lot of unknowns. There are a lot of knowns about monkeypox, but there’s still a lot of unknowns. So we really got to implement the interventions we have, get a much better feeling for the natural history and the scope and absolutely reach out into the community, and that’s the reason why I think the combination of Bob and Demetre is really a good combination.”

The monkeypox virus spreads through prolonged and close skin-to-skin contact, including hugging, cuddling and kissing, as well as sharing...