New York City’s monkeypox vaccine appointment site crashed within minutes of going live on Tuesday due to overwhelming demand.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene apologised after its booking site ran out of available slots and went down shortly after it was launched.
“All available monkeypox vaccine appointment slots have been booked,” the New York City tweeted on Tuesday.
“Due to overwhelming traffic, as soon as appointments went online this afternoon, the site delivered error messages for many people who were unable to make appointments.”
Around 7,000 vaccine appointments were made available in the latest launch.
The city said it would notify residents when more became available, which should be later this week.
“We apologise for the frustration caused and are working to build stable appointment infrastructure as we roll out more appointments as vaccine supply increases in the coming weeks.
“We look forward to receiving more doses in the near future to provide to New Yorkers.”
On the department’s monkeypox information site, it acknowledged that vaccine supply remains low.
“NYC is receiving a limited number of doses from the federal government, and we are making them available to New Yorkers as quickly as possible,” it stated.
A total of 929 monkeypox cases have been recorded in the United States by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of Tuesday afternoon.
Some 158 of those are in New York, while 150 cases have been detected in California, and 121 in Illinois.
Monkeypox can spread via close contact through respiratory droplets and direct contact with skin lesions and recently contaminated objects.
The disease usually resembles a mild illness with initial symptoms including fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, chills and exhaustion.
