Whether it is abstinence, avoiding nightclubs, limiting sexual partners or pushing for a swift vaccine rollout, Spain’s gay community is on the front line of the monkeypox virus and are taking action.
“With this monkey thing, I prefer to be careful... I don’t have sex any more, I don’t go to parties any more, and that’s until I’m vaccinated and have some immunity,” said Antonio, a 35-year-old from Madrid who declined to give his surname.
Antonio, who often went to nightclubs and sometimes to sex parties, decided to act as cases continued to increase.
Photo: AP
Spain on Saturday reported its second monkeypox-related death.
Outside of Africa, the only other such death has been in Brazil.
More than 22,000 cases have been detected throughout the world outside of Africa since the beginning of May, the WHO said.
Spain is one of the world’s worst-hit countries, with the Spanish Ministry of Health’s emergency and alert coordination centre put the number of infected people at 4,298.
As cases increase globally, the WHO has called on the group currently most affected by the virus — men who have sex with men — to limit their sexual partners.
Before going on holiday abroad, one holidaymaker said he would avoid “risky situations.”
“I didn’t go to sex clubs anymore and I didn’t have sex either,” the 38-year-old said.
“This is not like COVID, the vaccine already exists, there’s no need to invent it. If it wasn’t a queer disease, we would have acted more — and faster,” Antonio said.
Like other members of the gay community, he believes the authorities have not done enough.
Non-governmental organizations have denounced a lack of prevention, a shortage of vaccines and stigmatization linked to the virus. This is despite the WHO declaring the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency.
Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash.
The disease usually heals by itself after two to three weeks, sometimes taking a month.
A smallpox vaccine from Danish drug maker Bavarian Nordic, marketed under the name Jynneos in the US and Imvanex in Europe, has been found to protect against monkeypox.
It took Antonio three weeks to get an appointment to be vaccinated, after logging on to the official Web site every day at midnight.
Appointments “are going as fast as tickets to the next Beyonce concert,” another joked, referring to the gay icon.
So far, Spain has only received 5,300 doses which arrived in late June.
Nahum Cabrera of FELGTBI+, an umbrella group of more than 50 LGBTQ organizations from across Spain, insists there is an urgent need to vaccinate those most at risk.
That means not just gay men, but anyone who has “regular sex with multiple partners, as well as those who frequent swingers’ clubs, LGTBI saunas, etc,” he said.
“It risks creating a false sense of security among the general population, and they relax into thinking that they are safe and that it only happens to men who have sex with men,” he said.
The target age group for vaccination is those aged 18 to 46, he added.
Older people are vaccinated against smallpox, which was eradicated in Europe in the early 1970s.
“We are facing a health emergency ... that affects the LGBTI community, so people think it is insignificant, that it is not serious,” said Ivan Zaro, of the Imagina MAS non-governmental organization.
“This is exactly what happened 40 years ago with HIV,” he said.
Javier spent three days in a hospital early last month after becoming infected. After three weeks in isolation, a challenge after the pressures of COVID-19, he told his family and friends.
The 32-year-old, who is in a monogamous relationship, said he still did not know how he had caught it.
“I warn everyone,” he said. “It’s an infectious disease, anyone can catch it.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to