In one week, the number of cases of monkey pox contamination rose from 223 to 461 in New York. Even if these figures are to be put into perspective with the eight million inhabitants of the city, more and more inhabitants seek to be vaccinated. New York being the epicenter of this viral disease in the United States.
With an air of deja vu during the Covid epidemic, vaccination centers have opened like the one in the gymnasium at a Brooklyn high school. Outside, long queues form. The majority are men in their twenties to forties, eager to protect those around them and avoid monkeypox, its rashes and pains.
Questioned by AFP, these candidates for vaccination explain that it is difficult to obtain an appointment on the dedicated website of the city, which lacks doses. At the end of last week, the 9,200 slots were released and were gone in seven minutes, and three days earlier the traffic was so bad that it overwhelmed the site and brought it down.
“We need tens of thousands of doses”
The megalopolis of the American east coast counts 21,500 doses of vaccines already injected or appointments made and it hopes to be able to accelerate with the promise of more than 30,000 vaccines for the entire state of New York. “We need tens of thousands of doses,” city health commissioner Ashwin Vasan insisted on Sunday.
“It’s frustrating, especially because with Covid, you would have thought there would be a more structured process for rolling out vaccines, but there really wasn’t a process,” says Aidan Baglivo, an analyst. of 23 years of data, for whom the people best connected to social networks are privileged.
Anyone can get monkeypox, which is spread through close contact, but the Jynneos vaccine is currently restricted to men who have sex with men, the vast majority of cases. This is enough to fuel fears that the LGBTQ community, of which New York is one of the capitals, will be further stigmatized and that the virus will become “a gay disease” in people’s minds.
Monkeypox usually heals on its own, but it is characterized by skin rashes (which may appear on the genitals or in the mouth) and may be accompanied by bouts of fever, sore throats and sometimes severe pain.
–