“The challenge now with monkeypox is to try and implement [strategies and interventions] effectively and fairly — without causing the specter of stigma,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the US. “We have these interventions and we need to get them to the people who need them — things like vaccines,” he said. The current Matt Galloway. The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global emergency on Saturday. There are 20,638 confirmed cases in 77 countries, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Thursday, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has recorded 745 cases of smallpox in Canadawith the majority in Ontario and Quebec. Symptoms of monkeypox include headaches, fever, muscle pain and fatigue and can lead to rashes or very painful lesions all over the body, which may take weeks to heal. The disease is transmitted through respiratory droplets during prolonged close contact, direct contact with skin lesions or body fluids, or through contaminated clothing or bedding. WATCHES | A Toronto man shares his recovery from monkeypox:
What it’s like to recover from monkey pox
A Toronto resident shares his experience recovering from monkeypox, while officials and advocates say more support is needed for patients during the long weeks of isolation. Although monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted disease, the increase in cases in recent months mainly affects men who have sex with men. Contact tracing has linked the cases having sex at raves in europe. Fauci said it’s important to recognize “the reality” that the disease has a disproportionate impact on this community and address them immediately.[making] Surely the doctors who care for this community know about it so they don’t miss it.” “And you have to do that without stigmatizing the community,” he said. But avoiding that stigma shouldn’t mean “subduing the message,” said Dr. Kevin Woodward, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. “This affects his communities [cisgender] men who love men, trans and non-binary people who have sex with men … those are the people who need to go out and get vaccinated,” she told CBC Radio’s Day 6, in an interview that aired Saturday. “I don’t think that by giving that information you’re stigmatizing,” he said. Dr Kevin Woodward says information about monkeypox can be targeted at vulnerable communities, without introducing stigma or “blaming people for the disease”. (Michael Cole/CBC) While Canada has implemented a monkeypox vaccine that targets vulnerable populations, access has been uneven across the country. (A man in Newfoundland he resorted to flying to Montreal to secure a shot.) There are also concerns that vaccine supply may be a problemas other countries try to secure doses of the Imvamune vaccine, from Danish vaccine developer Bavarian Nordic. But while anyone can get monkeypox, Woodward said it’s important to pay attention to populations where the disease is already circulating. “If we just say, ‘anyone can get monkeypox,’ number one, we’re going to have a ton of people — who aren’t really at high risk right now — worrying about it and trying to get access to the vaccine “, he said. . He also said it risks diverting the message from vulnerable groups, including the LGBT community, who “should think about monkey pox, should definitely have access to a vaccine if they are at risk based on their sexual contacts and then are on the lookout for any signs or symptoms of illness.”
Echoes of AIDS from the early days
Woodward said that in the 1980s and 1990s, public health messages about HIV/AIDS were “much more denunciation.” “It was around, you know, ‘You have this disease because of your behavior,’ … that kind of message that we don’t want to send,” he said. “The balance is really about giving the right information and at the same time not blaming people for a disease.” Fauci has become globally recognized for his work throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but in a 40-year career, he has also been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS research. This week he is a keynote speaker at this week’s International AIDS Conference in Montreal. In the early days of AIDS, Fauci said no one knew what caused the disease. “We didn’t have a cause, we didn’t have a cure and we didn’t have a vaccine,” in the early days of AIDS, he said, and the challenge was “to quickly try to develop interventions.” (The etiology of a disease is the understanding of its cause or origin). “Right now with monkeypox, we have something very, very different. We have etiology. We have tests. We have vaccines and we have treatments,” he said. WATCHES | Cases of smallpox climbing in Canada:
Monkeypox cases continue to rise in Canada
As cases of monkeypox climb in Canada, there are growing concerns that the vaccine is not widely available and time may be running out to contain the spread. Fauci said mistakes were made in starting HIV/AIDS, but that it taught him the importance of working with affected communities. “We were trying to do research and clinical trials in the classic, somewhat antiquated way, without community involvement,” he said. When teams like it ACT pushing back at what they saw as government inaction, Fauci said he tried to put himself in the shoes of “gay activists who were suffering terribly from this mysterious disease.” “I came to the conclusion that I would do exactly what they did. I would stand up to the establishment and say, ‘You’ve got to get us involved,’” he said. Fauci said he worked to include the views of activists in his work. While it wasn’t smooth sailing at first, he sees it as an example of how seemingly opposing teams can work together to achieve a common goal. “It’s really a very important story [how] you have to listen to the communities involved, no matter what the disease is, no matter what’s going on. You have to get the community involved,” he said. Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Susan McKenzie.
