Guess what? The FDA approved a vaccine for monkey pox and smallpox based on a live attenuated cow pox virus in 2019:

Jynneos, which took 15 years to develop, is safe for use in adults with eczema and compromised immune systems—people normally considered too high risk for the standard smallpox vaccine.

The vaccine, based on a live, attenuated vaccinia virus, will be injected in one dose, and has been proven to be safe and immunogenic in 22 clinical trials.

Bavarian Nordic sees travel vaccine potential

Monkeypox is related to smallpox, and both viruses are part of the Orthopoxvirus genus in the Poxviridae family. Unlike smallpox, however, monkeypox is difficult to transmit via person-to-person. Most cases have been in humans who have eaten tainted animal meat and then fallen ill. The virus has about a 1% to 10% case-fatality rate, and patients experience an unsightly rash for several weeks after contracting the virus.

Monkeypox outbreaks are ongoing in Nigeria, but the disease has been documented in Nigerian travelers in the United Kingdom, Israel, and Singapore.

According to Bavarian Nordic, as many as 5 million people travel to countries affected by monkeypox in Central Africa each year, suggesting a market potential for a monkeypox vaccine for travelers.

Smallpox is much more deadly than monkeypox, and highly contagious. The virus was eradicated in 1980, but most of the world's population is now susceptible to infection, making the smallpox a bioweapon target, Bavarian Nordic said.

"Re-emergence of smallpox could occur as result of deliberate or accidental release of samples that are kept for research purposes or may be synthesized in a lab," the company said.

Smallpox has a 30% case-fatality rate.

[link to www.cidrap.umn.edu (secure)]