Monkey pox has 1,450 cases in France this Thursday. Preventive vaccination against this disease was extended on Monday July 18 to all people at risk, in particular the community of homosexual men, who are particularly exposed. Marc Dixneuf, director general of the Aides association, which fights in particular against HIV, calls on Franceinfo on Thursday to reinforce what he considers to be a good measure.
franceinfo: Is there a risk of stigmatization of homosexual people?
Mark Dixneuf: The risk always exists, that’s for sure. But the first stigma, it would be above all not to consider which public is concerned in priority. I believe that unfortunately enough today, in France, the stigmatization of homosexuals does not need monkey pox to be totally liberated. So, I believe that the subject today is to implement an effective vaccination policy as close as possible to people.
How do you judge the current vaccination policy?
There, we have 30,000 doses available in France for this vaccination [30 000 doses, a appris franceinfo auprès de la Direction générale de la Santé ce jeudi, dont 20 000 doses déjà sur le terrain]. We estimate that it may affect 150,000 people in France. Since it takes two doses, it would take 300,000 doses ideally. We are quite a long way off.
It must be recognized that the State services mobilized very quickly, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
Marc Dixneuf, director of Aidsat franceinfo
The information is widely disseminated now by social networks and by the media: the people concerned (men who have sex with men) are generally very well informed and they all seek to have the possible slots. So we see that there are bottlenecks related to the availability of slots, the number of doses available, the number of people who can carry out this vaccination. It’s a combination of factors.
The fact that the WHO can today decide that it is a global health emergency, would that have an incentive effect, a wake-up effect for everyone?
The awakening, I believe that in France, it is there. There is real consciousness. The fact that the Ministry of Health has given the number of doses available shows the vigilance in which it is. I think that today, we need to expand the places of vaccination, to have a greater number of them, that health professionals such as pharmacists can be mobilized for those who wish, significant working hours: people work, so they need appointments either very early or very late in the day. It is the diversification of places that is important and access to information on: where are the places, at what times? People are needed at the end of the phone line who can be listed on the sites of regional health agencies.
This is another issue, but it is also essential: to know how this disease is transmitted?
Virologists say that transmission is by fluids, by pustules, by discharges. It is necessary that couples, for example where one of the two people has monkeypox, be extremely attentive. There are discussion groups that bring together dozens of people who exchange advice on how to access vaccination, on how to avoid scars, how to control pain because it can be extremely painful. There is an intra-community solidarity network that is being set up, which is fairly standard. This is another parallel with the fight against HIV: the exchange between sick people makes it possible to know the right solutions more quickly.