The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s offices in Long Island City, Queens.
Matt Tracy
Mpox continues to circulate at elevated levels in New York City, with 63 cases reported in October — surpassing September’s yearly high of 61 — and several recent weeks featuring nearly two dozen cases across the five boroughs.
The weeks of Oct. 4 and Oct. 25 saw 19 cases each — the most the city has seen in a week this year — according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which posts the latest mpox cases on the second Thursday of every month.
The first few months of the year brought only a handful of cases, but the numbers started to climb in the spring and continued to increase throughout the summer and fall. The timeline resembles last year’s trend when cases increased by the dozens in the spring and continued to remain higher than usual into the summer months. From Jan. 1 of 2024 to Jan. 9 of this year, 420 people tested positive for mpox in the city. Through the first week of November this year, the city has seen 348 cases in 2025.
By borough, 44% of the cases in October came out of Manhattan, followed by Brooklyn (21%), Queens (16%), The Bronx (14%), and Staten Island (5%), city health officials told Gay City News. Among all cases in the city last month, 58 were men and five were transgender, gender non-conforming, or non-binary.
There does not appear to be a main driving factor — such as attending sex parties or traveling out of town — behind the uptick in cases, said Amanda Cary, the clinical director of sexual health at Callen-Lorde, which provides healthcare to LGBTQ New Yorkers. But Cary, in an interview with Gay City News on Nov. 18, said a common thread among many people who are contracting mpox is that they tend to have multiple sexual partners.
Most of the cases have been among individuals who are either unvaccinated or have yet to complete the two-dose JYNNEOS vaccine regimen for mpox, according to Cary and city health officials.
“The vaccine is not 100% effective, but illness among people who have been vaccinated tends to be mild compared with illness among people who have not been vaccinated,” the city health department told Gay City News on Nov. 18.
Cary has witnessed breakthrough cases among vaccinated patients, including a time recently when a fully vaccinated patient contracted mpox but had a very mild case, demonstrating that the vaccination can make a difference — even in breakthrough cases.
“They were bracing for impact and they were like, ‘I don’t understand — how was I spared?’” Cary explained. “And I said, ‘Because you got vaccinated. You did exactly what was safe to do for yourself and for your community.’”
Over the last three months, Cary said, 39 people have been vaccinated across Callen-Lorde’s three locations, which are in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Health officials have stressed the importance of completing the mpox vaccine regimen amid concerns that many individuals received only one shot and never returned for a second dose.
“Even if it’s been since 2022, since you’ve had your vaccine, you can get your second one,” Cary said. “You don’t need to restart the series. It has benefits: Even when it doesn’t completely prevent an infection, it can really prevent suffering.”
The west coast has seen several cases of a more dangerous strain of mpox known as clade I, as opposed to clade II, which emerged in the US during the 2022 outbreak. The more dangerous strain does not appear to be circulating in New York State at the moment, but the mpox vaccine protects against that, too.
Cary underscored the need to remain vigilant and monitor the numbers, but also stressed that it is not time to panic — especially given that the cases pale in comparison to the explosive 2022 outbreak.
“With public health messaging, it’s always tricky because I don’t think there’s need to alarm anybody, but there’s this great tool we have that drastically reduced our cases, and it’s still available,” Cary said, referring to the vaccine. “There are still cases out there. Let’s keep using this.”
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