Thousands of more monkeypox vaccines will be available to New York City residents this month to help combat the recent surge.

The New York City Department of Health reported over 1,500 monkeypox cases throughout the five boroughs. Elected officials are now pulling out all the stops to keep Americans protected.

“With cases doubling roughly every week, it's paramount that the government prepare a health care system to meet vaccine and testing demands so that Americans can remain safe,” says Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Last week, the federal government pledged to send 80,000 doses to New York City. Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday that 32,000 of those vaccines will arrive in the first shipment, with two more deliveries expected in the coming weeks as shots are handed out.

“We need a lot more vaccines and we need them fast,” Gillibrand says. “I sent a letter to President Biden urging him to invoke the Defense Protection Act. This will help ramp up the manufacturing of monkeypox vaccines and give manufacturers the resources they need to make these vaccines available to more people at a much more accelerated rate."

Local organizations like Equality New York teamed up with the city Department of Health to host their second town hall Wednesday evening in an effort to keep New Yorkers informed.

“There’s much more demand for the vaccine than there are vaccines to go around, and we are doing our best to get that vaccine out to the people who are at highest risk to a recent exposure,” says Ursula Bauer, of the Health Department.

The town hall touched on issues like helping people navigate the health care system during an outbreak, addressing government distrust during a public health crisis and the accessibility of vaccines.

“We are certainly working to increase access to vaccinations across the city…rolling out a number of different access points in all five boroughs, vaccination clinics, including our mass vaccination sites,” says Torian Easterling, of the Health Department.

Appointment slots for the 23,000 vaccines are set to open 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 4.