Over 1000 cases of monkey pox in England

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That is quite worrying, isn’t it? No one has died but 10% have been hospitalised. I personally don’t relish being covered in horrible scabs.

Is this post suggesting that horrible diseases are somehow discriminating against lesbians? Clearly the answer to why lesbians haven’t had notable outbreaks of STDs is because there’s no penetration with a significant body part and no large amount of fluids being passed between partners. It’s not like the gay men are hogging all the HIV for themselves.

"Clearly the answer to why lesbians haven’t had notable outbreaks of STDs is because there’s no penetration with a significant body part and no large amount of fluids being passed between partners. It’s not like the gay men are hogging all the HIV for themselves."

Well, yes, but monkeypox isn't transmitted like this so it's more down to higher levels of promiscuity among men and monkey pox simply going around among gay men at the moment. It's not homophobic to state that.

I believe there is some evidence now that it is being passed sexually through semen, but also it's being passed through skin to skin sexual contact.

But it's mainly about number of partners, gay men also account, at least in the US, for something like 80% of cases of syphilis. Women, either straight or lesbian, just don't have as many partners, which tends to mean straight men don't either.

So much homophobia on this thread tbh.

It is undoubtedly true cases have been found in MSM. This might for a variety of reasons.

1. higher risk behaviour makes risks of contracting it genuinely higher for certain communities.

2. founder effects.

3. more testing in these communities as they have been told about it and most advice Ive seen says go to sexual health clinics for testing.

4. people who are not MSM not testing because of attitudes see demonstrated by ms many posters in this thread.

Growth in cases does seem to be exponential currently albeit with a long doubling time and as demonstrated time and time again the last few years there is a chance of spillover into other demographics which has already happened in the UK as children have contracted it

Personally, it does not feel like a huge risk at present but I hope it still feels that way in a few months.

It is concerning that we have had unusual liver problems in children then widespread global outbreaks of a non endemic disease, on top of 3 covid waves this year and probably a be2.75 one in the autumn/ winter.

I don't understand why it's homophobic to say you're not worried because you're not a man who has sex with men. The data doesn't lie...of cases where sex is known 99.6% of those cases are in men (1,180 male cases, 5 female). Even if you assume that all the "sex unknown" cases are women (highly unlikely) that's still 95.6% of cases are in men. It's spreading through an activity that primarily men engage in and women don't and I don't think that activity is watching football down the pub..

Yes anyone can get monkeypox but, as a woman, I wouldn't personally be worrying about it unless I thought that my husband was engaging in casual sex with men on the side.

"It's spreading through an activity that primarily men engage in and women don't"

so I suppose you the 2 kids who got it must be sexually active then. Ffs

I would assume that the children in questions dad(s) were engaging in casual sex with other men. As I said, anyone can get it but it is primarily spreading through casual sex networks. This is evidenced by the massive majority of cases being seen in men. I'm not being goady, I genuinely don't understand why it is homophobic to highlight this.

It's not homophobic to recognise the original pattern.

It's pretty ignorant- and perhaps homophobic - to assume it will stay in that one group. As soon as it arrives in the children of those men, then it can start spreading in schools and nurseries. From there, it can go anywhere.

I'm surprised people are so blasé, to be honest.

It's disappointing we didn't try harder to contain it at the start.

Well contacts are isolating for 21 days and vaccination is being offered to certain groups (can't remember exact detail). So they are trying to contain it.
I think it's more homophobic to be too woke to acknowledge where the risk is currently as if it's so shameful to be a MSM we can't mention it. Thank goodness the health practitioners aren't so squeamish.

"According to WHO, available evidence suggests that those who are most at risk are those who have had close physical contact with someone with monkeypox, and that risk is not limited in any way, to men who have sex with men"

This is not what reporting has achieved in the UK clearly.

According to many posters on this thread, you are not at risk unless you fuck other men. If a kid caught it must be because their dad is fucking other men. Let's imagine you are not MSM you might not want to get tested or tell anyone as people will assume you are. If you caught it via other transmission would your girlfriend assume you were cheating on her with men?

I wouldn't assume it is only spreading due to casual sex or make sweeping statements due to those assumptions or dare I say it prejudice. If testing for monkey pox is offered only via sexual health clinics then your evidence will be biased. I have no doubt that MSM are far more likely to be infected at present but it is also possible that some cases are spreading in the community undiscovered due to reporting and where and how testing is offered and targeted.

Plenty of people draw parallels between hiv being written off as a gay disease and we know how that turned out.

There's no evidence of monkeypox being able to spread in the manner you've suggested. It's been an occasional disease in parts of Africa for many years and was always self limiting, presumably as it is not an easily spread disease and it has distinctive and off-putting symptoms. It is unfortunate that this time it found its way into a man who has sex with other men and has been spreading via the very close contact that you get with casual sex at places like festivals, saunas and now, presumably, through looser networks like Grindr. Is the next step it making its way into the more general population? Probably. But until there's evidence of that in larger numbers in the data (only 5 women infected so far...) then it's just not something I am worried will affect me personally.

It would be good if it had been contained better but I think the horse had already left the stable when it was discovered. What would you have had the government do? Shut down the saunas where it initially spread? Closed gay bars? Told Grindr to take itself offline?

This.

HIV has affected women as often as men in S Africa, and other African countries.

@AmIOverReacting20 the LGB alliance was booted off Twitter for suggesting that places where MSM meet should voluntarily shut to stop transmission.

I don't know a lot about how it spreads around the world.
I worry that we are densely populated and highly mobile in comparison with some countries.
We also don't have the sterilising action of the sun as reliably as some countries.
We know this outbreak has jumped out of its usual setting and spread around the world- so already behaving differently.

I'm just not 100% confident that it will behave here as it previously has where it originated.

According to the nhs.uk website on monkeypox, it can also be transmitted by coughs and sneezes of affected people with a rash.Advice is also for isolation, rather than just good hand washing. I don’t think we need to panic but not be complacent either.

I'm not worried because I very rarely have physical contact with other people apart from DH (who I'm as sure as I can be isn't having it away on the side). Doing the ONS Covid survey has highlighted the fact that I don't really touch other people from week to week. I'm not pathologically anti-social like many MNers, I'm just not at a stage in my life where I'd actually touch someone, certainly not their naked skin.

Also I'm over fifty, so I hope my half-century old smallpox jab would still hold up.

I'm not surprised lgb alliance called for that. They know a spade is a spade no matter how much those in authority insist it's actually a wheelbarrow. I get why the WHO and the UK government are pushing the line that they are re monkeypox but it's infantilising and, to me, has the effect of making people mistrust what they're saying. IMO it reeks of the same cognitive dissonance that has us saying "anyone can get pregnant" rather than "women get pregnant".

havent we learned from covid that the concern isn’t about the individual risk but the impact on health services. And if the cases are doubling quickly that means exponential growth which could be a big problem

The reporting of has been so misleading and many people now think know it’s an std or spread in just the gay community which is not true. While that’s where the initial outbreaks began its contagious through coughs/sneezes as well as close contact
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I was told there now have been cases with children. Il admit that’s hearsay. There are also now cases through some of my local areas including where I work. Just dealt with covid for over two years now bloody this. Infection control will be fed up!

While I’m not overly concerned right now it’s right to be aware of, as now it’s obviously spreading and when children get it and take it into school that’s when the trouble really starts.

"I was told there now have been cases with children. Il admit that’s hearsay"

Only if you consider confirmation from the WHO hearsay....

So we should expect to see an explosion of cases among women, would you think?

Well, apparently it’s mutating and the WHO is calling for urgent action.

It is definitely past time to take action to try and stamp this out while we still can. And part of that is, shock horror, identifying among which people the virus is spreading. It's men who engage in casual sex with men. Not women, not men in monogamous homosexual relationships, not preschool children. Those men need vaccinating and educating and some establishments need shutting down.

I do think some people on this thread don't understand what the men who have sex with men casual sex scene is like. It's not like someone going on tinder and dating a couple of different guys at a time. I won't pretend to be very familiar with it but one of my friends used to be involved (it was coming up for 10 years ago that he and I used to discuss this though so maybe things have changed?). Anyway, the casual sex in saunas you won't know each others names, you probably won't even see what the other person really looks like as it's dark and steamy. The grindr hook ups there's no niceties, it's purely about sex. One time my friend told me about he went to this guy's house and the guy opened the door and literally jumped on him, had sex and then threw him out. He barely saw his face. That's how he told me anyway. Maybe he was exaggerating a bit but I don't think so. Anyway, that's why it's such a recipe for disaster with a disease like monkeypox as you have a perfect storm of very close physical contact, almost no emotional investment in the other party and huge difficulties tracing connections.

There is a massive difference between homosexual men and the casual men who have sex with men sex scene. To equate the two is a gross oversimplification.