Officials say the “majority” of cases in Britain are in men who have sex with men, and Mr Prochazka said London was particularly affected by its large LGBTQ + community.
Gay men are asked to be “hyper vigilant” of symptoms, as the virus can be spread through close contact with an infected person, such as skin-to-skin contact. Sexual interactions fall into this category.
Prochazka said: “As a gay man, we already have so many STIs. We have gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, LGV, herpes, shigella, we have so many things on our minds.
“Our relationship with STIs, or infections in general, is a little different from the relationship that other people have. We don’t want another STI or another infection that specifically affects us. I’m not saying smallpox. of the monkey is an STI, but it appears to be sexually transmitted, perhaps similar to the shigella.
“We know that most people who become infected with shigella are men in the UK who contract it through sexual contact, and we don’t want another infection to enter these networks and burden our health.”
It comes when Britain’s health authorities updated official guidelines to say that pet rodents (such as gerbils, guinea pigs and hamsters) from smallpox cases should be kept in a safe place like a laboratory. government for three weeks.
This is the period of human incubation of the disease and the animal must be negative by PCR before it can leave the quarantine. There are an estimated two million pet rodents in Britain.
Wendi Shepherd, the UK’s director of smallpox smallpox incidents, described the move as a “precautionary measure”.
Other pets, such as cats and dogs, are believed to be less susceptible to monkeypox and can be isolated away from an infected person at home as long as veterinarians can safely access them.