Friday’s meeting was called by the World Health Organization in order to discuss the recent outbreak of monkeypox. As of Sunday, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported from 12 countries. What makes this unusual is that the disease is not typically found outside of Africa.
WHO believes sexual contact can transmit the disease.
Sydney Morning Herald:
What seems to be happening now? “It has entered the population both as a sexy and genital type and is being transmitted sexually transmitted infectious disease (“STID”),” WHO official David Heymann, an infectious diseases specialist told Reuters.
Heymann stated that an international panel of experts met via videoconference in order to discuss the outbreak and determine who is most at risk.
He stated that the meeting was called due to “the urgency of this situation.” This group does not recommend that an International Public Health Emergency of International Concern be declared (WHO’s highest alert), in response to the COVID-19 epidemic.
Scientists must be able to track and stop the spread of the disease.
ABCNews:
“I’m stunned”. Oyewale Tomori is a virologist who was previously the head of Nigeria’s Academy of Science. He is now a doctor and a member of several WHO advisory boards.
He said that “this isn’t the type of spread we have seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West,” he said.
This new strain seems to have spread via sexual contact between gay men and bisexual men. It is against the law to “stigmatize people with a sick lifestyle.”
“Stigmatizing groups of people because of a disease is never acceptable. It can be a barrier to ending an outbreak as it may prevent people from seeking care, and lead to undetected spread.”
Indeed!https://t.co/extcfSqoCN— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) May 20, 2022
It is not “stigmatizing” someone to point out that anal sex increases the chance of getting monkeypox.
This strain of monkeypox has not caused any deaths. Joe Biden is trying to raise awareness of this problem.
Reuters:
The monkeypox outbreak is something “everybody should be concerned about,” U.S. President Joe Biden said on Sunday, adding that U.S. health officials are looking into possible treatments and vaccines.
“We’re working on it hard to figure out what we do,” Biden told reporters at an airbase in South Korea before departing on Air Force One for Japan.
If we’re “following the science,” it sounds like the only people who should be concerned about monkeypox are people who engage in risky sexual behavior. Any way you dice it, that’s not “everybody.” But you can’t sufficiently scare the population without inferring that all of us are at risk.
He grabs our hands and pulls us back just as we think that we are out. All I can’t seem to figure out is which fool out there decided to have sex with a monkey? Joking, but it is possible.
