Top health officials say they are trying to limit the spread of the monkeypox virus while preventing stigma against those most affected — particularly gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men — but their messaging may be part of the problem. according to some advocates.
More than 21,000 people in more than 70 countries have contracted the virus, which causes painful sores and blisters among other symptoms. Approximately 98 percent of confirmed cases are in men who have sex with men.
This week, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that stigma “can be as dangerous as any virus and can fuel the epidemic”. At the same time, he urged men who have sex with men to reduce the number of sexual partners or reconsider the possibility of having new sexual partners “for now”.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which has reported at least 745 cases since the first two cases were discovered in late May, also urged men who have sex with men to limit sexual partners, especially casual acquaintances.
“I think when we try to tell people, ‘Stop doing this. Stop doing that,’ that doesn’t really work,” Devan Nambiar of the Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance in Toronto told CBC News. “It hasn’t worked on any infection.”
Devan Nambiar, capacity building manager at the Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance in Toronto, said the stigma of HIV/AIDS is still prevalent after more than 40 years. (Submitted by Devan Nambiar)
It’s important to make people aware of risk factors so they can make informed decisions, and to be compassionate and concise in messaging, he said, but not to stigmatize people because of their sexual activity and behavior — something gay men, on -in particular, have endured since the early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, when the disease was widely considered a “gay disease.”
Lessons learned from this era have been applied to public health today, but there is criticism that history is repeating itself with the handling of the monkeypox epidemic.
Some advocates attending the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022) in Montreal from July 29 to August 2 say health officials must prevent the perception that a viral threat such as HIV/AIDS or monkeypox affects only one segment of the population .
“[We] lived this with the HIV epidemic. We certainly saw that with COVID-19. Let’s not do that with monkeypox, shall we?” said Linda-Gail Becker, deputy director of the Desmond Tutu Center for HIV at the University of Cape Town’s Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine in South Africa and past president of the International AIDS Society. which organizes the AIDS fundraiser 2022.
Engagement is the key to combating health threats
The conference is returning to Montreal for the first time since 1989, when access was limited to drugs that could prolong the lives of people infected with HIV. The majority of AIDS deaths at the time were gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, transgender women, and injecting drug users.
WATCH | Are monkeypox reports missing the mark?
Concerns about public health messages surrounding monkeypox
As monkeypox cases spread around the world, predominantly among men who have sex with men, there is growing concern that public health messages aimed at this community have missed the mark.
However, the monkeypox virus is not a sexually transmitted infection like HIV, the virus that causes AIDS; it is spread through close personal contact with someone who is infected, but also through direct contact with materials that have touched an infected person’s bodily fluids or wounds, such as sheets or clothing.
Becker believes that without proper communication and engagement with affected groups – whether it’s HIV/AIDS or monkeypox – there is a risk of discrimination that can lead to people not seeking or being able to access services. which they need.
Gay men are taking health into their own hands
Nambiar, who will also attend the AIDS 2022 conference that begins Friday, said gay and bisexual men have long been advocates for their own health care and need to “figure out a lot about ourselves” because of “indifference” to the LGBTQ community.
“We actually led the way on a lot of things, in terms of self-checks, acceptance [on] advocacy, taking autonomy over our well-being, fighting for our rights,” he told CBC News.
With monkeypox, he said, gay and bisexual men have been vocal from the start, calling for paid leave so they can properly quarantine, and demanding access to testing and vaccines.
He said it’s an individual decision to get vaccinated to protect against monkeypox, something about 27,000 eligible people have done so far in Canada, according to PHAC.
Some public health authorities have set up pop-up vaccination clinics in places frequented by men who have sex with men, including gay bars, bathhouses and cruising areas. The monkeypox response has been “pretty decent” in Canada, Nambiar said, though he can’t say the same for other countries.
In the US, which now has the highest number of recorded cases of monkeypox, the response to the outbreak has been criticized. One AIDS advocate compared the US government’s initial response to monkeypox to their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the country led the world in deaths and less than 70 percent of the population was fully vaccinated.
LISTEN | Dr. Anthony Fauci on HIV/AIDS, monkeypox and COVID-19:
The Current20:50Dr. Anthony Fauci on the lessons learned from COVID-19, HIV/AIDS and monkeypox
We talk to Dr. Anthony Fauci about the COVID-19 pandemic, the lessons he’s learned from the fight against HIV/AIDS, and what the world needs to do to contain the rising cases of monkeypox.
HIV/AIDS overshadowed by converging threats
As fears of monkeypox grow and the number of COVID-19 cases rise, health professionals gathering in Montreal worry about whether the world will be able to meet the UN’s 2030 goal of ending HIV/AIDS as a global health problem.
An estimated 38.4 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS in 2021, with an estimated 1.5 million new HIV infections last year. The United Nations said this was one million cases above global targets and a sign of “slow progress”.
This week, at the launch of a new UNAIDS report titled At Risk, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima warned that “the response to the AIDS pandemic has been undermined by global crises”, including the war in Ukraine and international economic instability.
“The necessary action to end AIDS is key to overcoming other pandemics,” she said.
Over the four days of the AIDS 2022 conference, there will be a push to “challenge apathy” in the global fight against HIV/AIDS and a call to “reengage and follow the science”.
Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, gives an update on the global AIDS situation for 2022 at a press conference in Montreal, ahead of this weekend’s World AIDS Conference. (Ryan Remiortz/The Canadian Press)
“Part of it is going on the offensive,” Becker said, noting that there is an additional challenge with the polarization around science that has emerged in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nambiar said part of this apathy toward HIV/AIDS comes from the “viral flood,” with the mutated variants and subvariants of COVID-19 and now monkeypox.
But he said one of the important lessons learned over the years that certainly applies today is that a successful response to public health emergencies requires collaboration between governments, public health workers and community organizations. That didn’t happen right away with HIV/AIDS, but he sees it developing now in response to monkeypox.
While there have been remarkable advances in the past four decades in preventing HIV transmission and allowing people to live with the infections as a chronic illness, Becker wants to remind people that this does not mean the HIV/AIDS pandemic is over.
“I would say we have the hardest mile ahead of us,” she told CBC News. “We really need to gird our loins, come together as a community and say, ‘What can we do to go the last mile?'”
Add Comment