Therese Coffey is leaving the UK vulnerable to monkeypox | Ceri Smith

It is concerning and shortsighted to report that the new health secretary has rejected her officials' advice to purchase more monkeypox vaccine.

Less than a month into the role, Coffey went against the recommendation of those who have been leading the country's response, and made a critical decision that leaves the UK vulnerable to future outbreaks of monkeypox.

The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a public health emergency in July after the UK recorded more than 3,500 cases. Gay and bisexual men make up most of the cases. Close contact during sex is the main cause of the spread of the disease.

The government needs to have a long-term plan for protecting the population's health, including adequate vaccine supplies, since the UK has just received a second batches of vaccine.

The emergency response to the outbreak is still going on despite the fact that these initial doses are protecting more people than first thought. They are not enough to protect against monkeypox in the long term. We should make the vaccine for monkeypox available to people if they want it.

The UK's monkeypox response isn't an outlier. Poor communication about vaccine availability resulted in a long queue of gay and bisexual men waiting for hours outside clinics to be vaccined, after seeing tip-offs about the locations on social media.

There isn't a lot of leadership at the top of government. The lack of support for sexual health services, the displacement of HIV and sexual health testing as clinic capacity is taken up responding to monkeypox, and an initial underestimation of how many would need to be vaccined can be seen.

The vaccine is crucial for controlling the outbreak and preventing it from becoming endemic, according to the UK Health Security Agency. More than 100,000 gay and bisexual men have been jabbed.

We need more jabs to protect gay men who don't meet the current risk criteria, but the UK has enough jabs to do that. It's also to prevent further outbreak.

Changes in sexual behavior among gay and bisexual men are thought to be one of the reasons for the drop in new cases. Each dose of vaccine can be used to give the same level of protection, as long as it's injected into the upper layer of the skin. Many people are still at risk and the virus is still circulating.

Gay and bisexual men don't need to be told "you're on your own" once the vaccine supply is gone. We won't have the vaccine supply necessary to get on top of it if the next outbreak affects groups other than gay and bisexual men.

Our message to the health secretary is to listen to the experts and ensure the UK is resistant to future monkeypox outbreaks. We need to get in the queue for more vaccine.