The reemergence of monkeypox in several countries, including the US and the UK, has surprised experts. Due to the concentration of the virus in the gay community, there has been a resurgence of ugly vilification similar to what that community faced during the HIV crisis.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, warned against those characterisations, noting that listening to the gay community — and not shunning it — will be invaluable to understanding the latest outbreak of the virus.
In an interview with The Independent, Dr Fauci — who headed the NIAID during the HIV crisis — said that experience cemented his belief that experts needed to work directly with marginalised communities to provide proper care.
"Had the world understood that in the very early years of HIV, I think there would have been a lot more information exchanged in a way that is productive, and that could have saved lives," he said. “The lessons we learned from HIV helped us with Covid, and the lessons we learned from HIV are helping us with monkeypox."
Monkeypox — which can cause swollen lymph nodes and a rash resembling chicken pox or herpes — was first identified in 1958 among lab monkeys. A little more than a decade later the first known human cases were reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The latest iteration of the disease has disproportionately been found among gay and bisexual men in UK, the US, and other countries.
While AIDs can be deadly — and particularly was so in the 1980's and early 1990's before advanced treatments became available — monkeypox can be treated with existing medicines and the current strain is not especially deadly.
The virus can be spread through bodily fluids or broken skin, or even coming into contact with items like clothing or bedsheets that have touched an infected person's skin. However, it is more likely to be spread through large respiratory droplets, like those exchanged during face-to-face conversations. The virus is not specifically sexually transmitted, though it could be transferred during sex, and it can infect people regardless of their sexual orientation.
Despite that, there has been some homophobic commentary lobbed at the gay and bisexual community due to the prevalence of the latest cases within that group.
Dr Fauci said the job for health experts now is educating those communities without creating a damaging stigma in the public's eye.
"How do we alert the LGBTQ community at the same time as not generating or reigniting stigma, which we worked so hard to put aside?" he said. "That we make sure they know there's a threat out there — not only the people at risk, but also the physicians that care for them, so that they don't miss diagnoses and think it's secondary syphilis or herpes."
He said to avoid unwanted stereotypes, health experts would have to engage directly with the community to understand their needs.
"That's when you embrace the community and ask 'what is the best way to do that?' Rather than what would happen decades ago, when you had a bunch of people in high places in science and public health and regulation, making decisions about how to engage the community," he said. "You engage the community from day one, which is what we're doing right now."
The Independent is the official publishing partner of Pride in London 2022 and a proud sponsor of NYC Pride.
