TRACY, Calif. — A Tracy city council member is speaking about his experience contracting monkeypox and the challenges of seeking preventative care.
Dan Arriola said he recently came down with a mild case of monkeypox, but he tried to get a vaccine in San Joaquin County in early July.
He said he learned health officials had just 10 doses of the monkeypox vaccine for a county of 750,000 people. Arriola testified last Tuesday to the California Senate, asking for more resources for the Central Valley for vulnerable groups.
"Ultimately, this is not a gay disease. This is not an LGBTQ disease. Anyone can get this, so we have that limited window now to make sure that we can get the resources to those that need them most and then we can prevent this from going out into the general public," said Arriola.
The state epidemiologist said this week there are 300,000 to 400,000 people in California at high risk of contracting monkeypox. With the shortage of the vaccine in the United States, many are flocking to nearby Canada to get vaccinated.
Monkeypox cases have reached more than 10,000, according to the CDC. This comes after the Biden administration declared monkeypox was a public health emergency earlier this month.
Symptoms of monkeypox include high fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a widespread rash across the face and body. Infections typically last between two and four weeks and only one in every 100 cases is fatal, generally only seriously affecting those that are immunocompromised.
Watch more on ABC10 | Monkeypox Outbreak: Sacramento is latest California county to make emergency declaration
