Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 6 June 2022 to Question 6877 on Monkeypox: Vaccination, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of offering a monkeypox vaccine to at risk groups during a routine sexual health check-up.

The UK Health Security Agency regularly reviews vaccine eligibility. The Imvanex vaccine is currently offered pre-exposure to healthcare workers who are at high-risk of coming into contact with the virus. This includes individuals working in sexual health services and high consequence infectious disease units. The vaccine is also offered post-exposure to higher categories of close contacts of confirmed cases, ideally within four days of exposure. This can be extended to 14 days for those in high-risk groups, including gay and bisexual men, men who have sex with men, pregnant women, young children, the elderly and those who are immunosuppressed.