Mayo Clinic Laboratories, for example, has the capacity to process 1,000 monkeypox samples a week but has received only 45 specimens from doctors since starting monkeypox testing July 11. At Labcorp, one of the largest commercial labs in the US, uptake has been higher but still “extremely low,” according to Dr. Brian Caveney, the lab’s president of diagnostics. While the anxiety is the same, the reasons are different because for Covid-19, the testing capacity was low, and for monkeypox, the capacity is plentiful but the demand is low. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, described testing as a “pillar” of the government’s monkeypox response Tuesday on CNN. The CDC has also sent out emails to physicians announcing the availability of testing at the five private labs.

Source: CNN July 28, 2022 14:23 UTC