The Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions committee held a hearing Wednesday with Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert.
Watch the hearing in the player above.
Walensky said there are 22,000 cases and 1 reported death so far in the U.S., but said the growth of cases has slowed due to the large rollout of vaccines, testing sites and community outreach efforts by the CDC. She also acknowledged that some part of the country are still seeing a rapid growth in cases.
"We must continue to aggressively respond with our entire toolkit including vaccination, testing and education," she said.
The hearing comes days after a Los Angeles County resident with a compromised immune system died from monkeypox. Local health officials announced the death Monday, believed to be the first U.S. fatality from the disease.
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The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced the cause of death, and a spokesperson said it was confirmed by an autopsy. The patient was severely immunocompromised and had been hospitalized. No other information on the person was released.
Monkeypox is spread through close skin-to-skin contact and prolonged exposure to respiratory droplets. It can cause a rash, fever, body aches and chills. Relatively few people require hospitalizations and only a handful of deaths worldwide have been directly linked to the disease.
Fauci said the disease still disproportionally affects gay or bisexual men, but warns that, much like AIDS, it is still possible to be affected by the virus regardless of age, gender or identity.
"Lessons learned during the response to AIDS and COVID-19, such as avoid stigma and ensuring the medical countermeasures get to where they are needed most, should help us in our efforts to respond to the ongoing monkeypox emergency," he said.
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The CDC recommends the monkeypox vaccine for people who are a close contact of someone who has disease; people who know a sexual partner was diagnosed in the past two weeks; and gay or bisexual men who had multiple sexual partners in the last two weeks in an area with known virus spread. Shots are also recommended for health care workers at high risk of exposure.
The United States has the most cases globally, with 21,985 confirmed, according to the CDC. California has recorded the most cases nationally, with more than 4,300. Black people and Latinos have been disproportionately infected.
A recent decline in cases, combined with an uptick in vaccinations, has encouraged the White House as officials promise to ramp up vaccination offerings at LGBTQ Pride festivals around the country in the coming weeks.