Why are gay getting monkeypox

Monkeypox and gay and bisexual men: Fact sheet What is monkeypox? Many cases, but not all, that were recently reported were in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men. While anyone can get monkeypox, the current outbreak is overwhelmingly affecting sexually active gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.

We need to help the public put the risk of this disease in perspective — it is usually a mild, self-limiting illness that usually goes away on its own within a few weeks, and it does not spread that easily. But we need to get the message out there about monkeypox sensitively, without stoking fear and mistrust and inadvertently alienating men who have sex with men.

Gay and bisexual men were blamed as the source and cause of HIV spreadeven though it was also spread through other routes such as heterosexual sex, from mother to child, needle-stick injuries and contaminated blood products.

Infected people will tend to infect people they have close contact with, which is why the risk of spread is high in affected households. Strange new infectious diseases that the public is unfamiliar with, such as monkeypox, can generate a disproportionate degree of fear in the population.

The virus is a pox virus that was first discovered in monkeys inhence the name. First, public health initiatives, such as clear, timely and transparent public education about the disease, can help allay public fears.

We need to get across the message that monkeypox is not a disease of men who have sex with men.

Monkeypox isn’t like HIV

Some of the stigma was driven by deeply held religious and cultural beliefs in society that unfairly equated their sexuality with notions of immorality and negative stereotypes of promiscuity. Since then, further cases have been reported in over a dozen countries where the disease is not normally present, including several European countries, Israel, the US and Canada, as well as Australia.

CDC simulated dynamic. And other factors may have made the outbreak worse. This is unfortunate as there is a real danger here of further stigma being generated towards this group. It resulted in some changing their health behaviour that led to delays in seeking healthcare.

The situation was worse for men from an ethnic minority backgroundwhere racial prejudices and stereotypes added to the stigma. Monkeypox may have mutated in ways that allow it to transmit more easily, and the share of the population who have had the smallpox vaccine—which also offers some protection against monkeypox—is declining because smallpox vaccination was abandoned worldwide starting in the s.

It affected their social and sexual relationships, leading to rejection by their partners and social isolation. Here's what you need to know about monkeypox, including whether it's a sexually transmitted infection, how it's impacting the gay community and how the virus could interact with HIV.

More than 30, monkeypox (mpox) cases have been diagnosed in the United States since Mayprimarily among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) (1, 2). This, in turn, had serious consequences for the people affectedespecially on their mental and emotional wellbeing.

In recent months, diagnoses have declined to one case per day on average. The person in question had recently returned to the UK from Nigeria, where they are believed to have contracted the infection. It meant some were not prepared to disclose who their contacts were — this would hinder outbreak investigations and control efforts by public health teams trying to track down the disease and stop its spread.

We need to reassure the public that this is not a new disease — scientists have studied it for years and have a good understanding of how it spreads and its health consequences. Increased public access to reliable health information sources would also help.

Misleading information in the media, and especially social media, could further fuel public anxiety, as was the case with Ebola in The more recent monkeypox cases did not have travel links to countries where the disease is endemic, which raises the possibility that the disease may have been silently spreading in the population for some time before it was detected.

Monkeypox is a rare disease that is caused by infection with monkeypox virus. It is believed that the virus naturally lives and reproduces in rodents in central and western Africa. It is not about sexuality: people tend to be infected through close physical contact and it does not have to be sexual in nature.

So while a high proportion of cases have so far occurred among men who have sex with men, in part this reflects their social networks.

Monkeypox an expert explains

We can also reassure those who have been exposed that there is an effective vaccine against it. However, mpox vaccination coverage varies regionally, suggesting variable potential risk for mpox outbreak recurrence (3). In addition, the public health measures required, such as isolation procedures, healthcare workers suited up in personal protective equipment, and rigorous investigations and contact tracing, are all reminiscent of interventions an authoritarian police-state might use for some crime.

So how should we tackle this outbreak? It has attracted a morbid interest from the public and media.