Gaithersburg-based Emergent BioSolutions was granted federal approval to use its smallpox vaccine in people at high risk for mpox infections that have been surging in Africa. Emergent had been making the vaccine called ACAM2000 for the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile in case of a bioterrorism attack. It’s been federally approved for smallpox since 2007 but wasn’t used much previously against mpox, another orthopoxvirus, because it can’t be used with people with compromised immune systems. That includes people with HIV.
