Africa warns against stigmatisation of men who have sex

Africa's public health agency said it doesn't know how many of the continent's reported monkeypox cases this year are in men who have sex with men, and it warned against any stigmatisation that could delay case reporting and affect the outbreak response.

The monkeypox cases reported in Europe and North America are almost exclusively linked to gay and bisexual men, but health officials say the virus can infect anyone who has physical contact with an infected person, clothing or bedsheets.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention acting director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Ahmed Ogwell, told reporters that the indicator is not relevant in the African context.

Many of the 54 countries of Africa criminalise same-sex relationships in some way.

Ogwell was asked how the issue of men having sex with men could be ruled out as a factor in the largely conservative continent's current outbreak if his agency had no statistics on it.

He said it's not an issue here. We don't want to make monkeypox an issue because we have serious outbreaks to manage and don't want to get into a discussion that distracts us from preparedness and response. monkeypox has been endemic in parts of Africa for decades, but it has not typically spread far beyond the continent, which is why we don't want to make it an issue.

Ogwell said health officials in Africa have collected data on monkeypox since 1970 and that men who have sex with men have never come up as a significant issue.

He said the drivers of this outbreak are traditional ones, including close contact in confined spaces and living in communities in contact with animals that have the virus.

He said that they have not seen any evidence of a specific group of people being affected by monkeypox. All communities, all ages, all genders are at risk. He urged people to avoid definitions and communications that may stigmatize those exposed. A more lethal form of monkeypox is spreading in Africa than in the West. In 11 countries, Africa has had more than 2,800 confirmed and suspected cases this year, including 103 deaths.

Since the Africa CDC's briefing last week, the number of confirmed and suspected cases has increased by 766, with 28 new deaths. The Africa CDC said that the case death rate is relatively high at 3.6 per cent.

Only a handful of deaths have been reported outside Africa in this outbreak.

The Africa CDC director said the continent still doesn't have any doses of monkeypox vaccines, though discussions continue with a number of countries and institutions on obtaining them. He said testing kits are urgently needed as well.

Experts suspect monkeypox outbreaks in North America and Europe may have originated in Africa long before the disease began spreading via sex at two raves in Spain and Belgium.

More than 70 percent of the world's monkeypox cases are in Europe, and 98 percent are in men who have sex with men.