The government’s handling of monkeypox has been severely criticized by an alliance of the country’s top sexual health professionals, who warn that the outbreak could last months and run the risk of the virus becoming “endemic if urgent action is not taken “.
In a statement seen by Sky News, the group, including public health directors and major sexual health charities, warns of the shortage of smallpox vaccines used to protect high-risk groups from smallpox. smallpox.
Dr John McSorley, immediate chairman of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH), told Sky News: “It looks like we are facing an outbreak that will last for the rest of the year at least before is avoided.
“But that runs the risk, if that happens, unless you get ahead of the epidemics, in reality, what you find is that you tend to lag behind.
“They’re always unpredictable, but what we’d like to do is be able to access more vaccines more quickly and be able to distribute them more effectively and all of that requires resources.”
It comes when the latest figures show that on Monday there were 1,735 confirmed cases in the UK, with 1,660 of these in England alone, according to the UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA).
A large proportion of cases in England were recorded in London: 75%.
For confirmed cases in the UK, where gender information was available, 99.4% of infections were male, with 10 cases of women confirmed, while the mean age of those infected was 36 years.
Smallpox is not a sexually transmitted infection (STI), but it can be presented as one.
In this global outbreak, it is spreading mainly among men who have sex with men.
Suspicious patients are presented to STI clinics that are already in excess, putting these services even more pressure.
Many sexual health clinics have been forced to close their doors to visitors and are choosing all patients by phone.
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2:45 The monkeypox patient is afraid to talk about stigma
A “discriminatory injustice”
Dr McSorely added: “It is simply not acceptable to see monkeypox become endemic in the GBMSM community (gays, bisexuals and men who have sex with men).
“We can stop it, but we need the resources to do it.
“Rarely is there the political will and public empathy to prioritize STIs and it is an injustice – I would venture to say discriminatory – to see how it develops in such a passive way.
“Not to mention the impact on other basic sexual health services that will slowly be further eroded by the online giants.”
The alliance is especially scathing about the government’s vaccine response.
Image: Image: WHO / Nigeria Disease Control Center
He says: “The current deployment of vaccination is too slow; access to vaccines is hampered by a lack of coordination between the agencies responsible for the different parts of the system.
“There is an insufficient number of vaccines, too few men have been vaccinated and communication about vaccines in the affected communities has been poor.
“We have not seen plans on how, or when, suboptimal access to vaccines will be resolved.”
The UKHSA (UK Health Safety Agency) told Sky News that it had acquired enough stock and that any delay in the deployment of the vaccine is up to the NHS.
Read more about monkeypox: How do you catch it, what are the symptoms and how easily is it transmitted? People with symptoms should not have sex, according to a new UK guide
Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunization at UKHSA, said: “UKHSA has acquired almost 30,000 doses of the Imvanex smallpox vaccine in response to the monkeypox outbreak and there are enough supplies available to allow the NHS to start the deployment of the program at high risk. groups “.
He added: “We are closely monitoring demand and are still in talks with the manufacturer so that we can quickly get more doses as needed.”
An NHS spokesperson responded by saying that the NHS is working with local partners to identify and invite those who are eligible for a vaccination to show up, and over the next few weeks will quickly increase the number of clinics to make it more as fast and comfortable as possible. get vaccinated.
NHS accused of ‘failing patients’
The NHS has also been criticized for failing patients to contact the NHS helpline 111 after presenting with symptoms.
Sex health worker Harun Tulunay, 35, has returned to his flat in east London in solitary confinement and is recovering from one of the worst cases of monkeypox in the country.
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He was rushed to Royal Free Hospital in north London with a high fever, an early symptom of his monkeypox infection.
Injuries and crusts in his throat meant that Harun could not eat or swallow.
He was fed through a tube in his arm. He told Sky News that “not getting help from front-line services was very scary.”
Harun called the NHS 111 helpline after having a fever of more than 39 degrees for several consecutive days.
He told Sky News: “My fever reached 39.5 degrees Celsius and when I called 111, they kept telling me ‘call back when you’re getting worse.’ It was getting worse, it was very scary.”
The World Health Organization has praised recovering patients like Harun for stepping forward and talking about their ordeal on social media.
It can cause other infected people to show up and seek help.
Read more: Monkeypox will be renamed because experts call for a “non-discriminatory” alternative.
It can also help destigmatize the disease.
“I’m alone, alone, I don’t have any family here other than a couple of good friends,” Harun added. “It was very scary. I thought I was alone, ‘I can’t do this alone.’ Not being able to get help from front-line services was very scary.”
The WHO has stopped before declaring this outbreak a global health emergency.
He says this spread of monkeypox is a crisis, for now.
But that may change when he meets his emergency committee again next week.