La Jornada: They accuse discrimination due to the lack of vaccines against monkeypox

Carolina Gomez Mena

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday March 12, 2023, p. 12

Of the 10 countries with the most cases of mpox or monkeypox, Mexico is the only one where there is no access to the vaccine, denounced members of defense groups and health promoters of sexual diversity, who specified that the country is in sixth place with 3,928 cases, according to official figures.

At the Regional Symposium on Monkeypox 2023, Jorge Saavedra, director of the AHF (Aids Healthcare Foundation) institute, highlighted that the latest epidemiological report from the Ministry of Health showed that 51 new cases and 74 probable ones were detected in the last 14 days, with which Mexico once again ranks first in the world for incidence.

According to data from the Ssa, infections have been declining in recent weeks, the most recent report showed the aforementioned 51 new cases. The largest number occurred in epidemiological week 36 (of 2022) with 309 confirmed cases. Between epidemiological weeks 34 to 41, confirmed infections were greater than 200 and even close to 300, as was the case in epidemiological week 37 of last year.

Saavedra added that the refusal is a political decisionbecause the scientific evidence agrees that immunization is the best measure to prevent contagion, and explained that in accordance with the above, various regulatory bodies for medicines, vaccines and international medical supplies such as the European Medicines Agency authorized it, as did the United States FDA.

Likewise, countries that are among those with the most infections have also done so, including Peru, Brazil and Colombia. Even Denmark, whose health system is what we aspire to, also authorized it.

Charlie López, representative in Mexico of the Latin American network of gay leaders (Gay Latino) assured that It has been decided not to buy the vaccine due to institutional homophobia, which saves money, because we are a minority, we do not matter, we are not a population force on which it can be spent, from that perspective the government sees it; We have been without vaccines for almost a year.

In his speech, Jean-Marc Gabastou, representative of the Pan American Health Organization, highlighted: I would like to firmly and publicly condemn any expression of discrimination, stigmatization and marginalization towards people and communities of diversity, “we firmly reject those types of expressions that sound like already seenlike from another era, including homophobia.”

Saavedra explained that since the first outbreaks of what was initially called monkeypox emerged in April 2022, 86,400 cases have been reported as of March 8 in 110 countries, adding that 68 percent are concentrated in America. , being the United States, Brazil, Colombia and Peru the most affected.

You cannot even receive a humanitarian donation of biologicals, for example, from the United States, where there are plenty of them, because it is not authorized here, he lamented.