LGBTQ leaders, health workers express frustration over monkeypox response. ‘It’s a human virus.’ – The Philadelphia Inquirer

July 29, 2022 Kim Martel

Fear about monkeypox has phones ringing off the hook at local health clinics treating members of the LGBTQ community, as the disease newly declared a global health emergency spreads rapidly in Philadelphia.

Many local clinics are turning away callers looking for a vaccine, including some exposed to the disease, due to a lack of doses.

State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta highlighted this frustration Friday at a news event to discuss the public health response to monkeypox at the Mazzoni Center, the city’s largest LGBTQ health agency.

Standing at the podium, he placed his phone on speaker and dialed the number — 215-685-5488 — advertised by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health for those exposed to seek out vaccination.

Please note that at this time all available appointments for monkeypox vaccination have been filled. If you have been in close contact with someone who has monkeypox, please remain on the line to be connected to contact tracing, said the voice on an automated message.

He hung up, leaving about a dozen leaders of community and health LGBTQ organizations tensely silent behind him.

Kenyatta, who identifies as gay, said people who have been exposed or want to keep their loved ones safe have been calling every day only to hear that message repeated.

“There’s no vaccine. That there are no appointments,” he said.

Health-care workers described being unable to care for patients because they don’t have access to vaccines.

Nackea Bachman is a physician assistant with Bebashi Transition to Hope, a nonprofit health organization working with people of color living with HIV/AIDS. Despite working with a population that is immunocompromised and at high risk of prolonged illness, Bachman said she doesn’t have monkeypox vaccines to offer.

One patient started crying yesterday when Bachman instructed them to quarantine for up to four weeks.

“They just broke down,” she recalled, noting that the patient was worried about how they could afford to miss work. “This could have been prevented if they had the vaccine.”

Not enough vaccine is available to respond to an outbreak spreading faster nationally in communities of color than the white population. Philadelphia has growing need and insufficient supplies, city health officials said.

Monkeypox spreads primarily through direct contact with the lesions or rashes of people who are infected. Although not transmitted through sex itself, transmission in the current outbreak appears to be linked with close contact such as intimate touching. The World Health Organization last week declared a global health emergency in the outbreak, so far spreading mostly among men who have sex with men.

Federal officials told reporters Thursday that more than half of 4,600 cases analyzed nationwide have affected people of color — with 31% of the reported cases involving people who identify as Hispanic or Latino, and 27% involving people who are Black.

Overall, the CDC reported nearly 5,000 cases. These numbers are likely an undercount, including in Philadelphia, where health officials reported 67 cases Friday — an increase of 17 cases since Monday.

Three to five patients are showing up with symptoms of monkeypox every day at the Mazzoni Center, said Steven Robertson, the center’s medical assistant supervisor.

The city said it provided 700 vaccine doses to LGBTQ-affiliated health clinics, including Mazzoni, but Robertson said that every time vaccines arrive, the vast majority are administered or allocated within 24 hours. He said the supply is not sufficient to meet the city’s growing needs, let alone keep health workers safe.

“We as health-care providers are engaging with patients that are positive and are not being offered a vaccination to keep us safe,” Robertson said.

Philadelphia health officials said Friday the situation is unlikely to change soon. So far Philadelphia received 2,625 vaccine doses, which are being provided through the federal government.

The city expects to receive an additional 6,020 doses through October or November — enough to vaccinate more than 8,600 people under its distribution plan.

“The Health Department fully acknowledges that even this number is not nearly enough,” spokesperson James Garrow said in an email.

The city is stretching the supply by taking a different approach to vaccination than recommended by the CDC, whose guidance calls for two doses. The first dose provides protection and a second dose shores up long-term immunity.

The city is planning on offering one dose only for now to get more people protected.

To prevent disease after exposure, the vaccine is most effective in the first four days following an infection, though it can still offer protection in the first two weeks if a person does not develop symptoms.

San Francisco and the state of New York, two of the areas hardest-hit by monkeypox in the U.S., declared public health emergencies on Thursday. Supporters there said doing so would be helpful in expanding testing and vaccines, as well as send a message to the federal government to take strong action.

But Philadelphia City Councilmember Mark Squilla said during Friday’s local event that the decision should be left to the scientific experts.

In the challenges rolling out monkeypox testing and vaccines, others saw echoes of the early days of COVID-19.

So far, the public outcry about the response has come predominantly from LGBTQ leaders and organizations, which further frustrates some in a community that remembers how in the early days of the HIV/AIDS outbreak, the virus was labeled a “gay disease.”

“I am a survivor of HIV, and I know what that stigma feels like and how deadly it is,” said Jazmyn Henderson, an activist with ACT-UP Philadelphia, which advocates for people living with HIV/AIDS. “We need to test, treat everybody. Vaccinate everybody. This is not a population specific virus. It’s a human virus.”