The medical community is warning more and more about the spread of monkey pox: doctor Jean-Daniel Lelièvre recommends vaccinating homosexual men and sex workers as much as possible.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) triggered its highest level of alert on Saturday July 23 in an attempt to stem the outbreak of monkeypox, which has affected nearly 17,000 people in 74 countries, announced its director general. . “This level of alert means that the entire scientific community will be watching the evolution of the disease very closely and will interact with the various countries to encourage them to increase their vaccine stocks.“, detailed on Saturday on franceinfo Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, head of the infectious diseases department at the Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil and vaccine expert with the WHO.
“The number of cases is increasing in Europe and there is uncertainty about the potential spread of the disease outside of the community that is currently affected“, he explains, while monkeypox is mainly rife in gay men.”It is also a way to show that the WHO takes this disease into consideration even if it is currently limited to a single category of people.“
The expert estimates that the current number of cases is “probably much higher“What do the current figures say, given the lack of screening for some patients. It encourages the authorities to allow access to vaccination in susceptible populations,”homosexuals with multiple sexual partners, as well as sex workers“, while refusing to stigmatize these communities: “It is not because these people are currently affected that they are responsible for this epidemic.“
The first symptoms of monkeypox are the appearance of fever, lymph nodes and the occurrence of vesicles similar to those that appear in case of chickenpox.