Is Monkeypox a Venereal Disease?
In declaring monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern, the World Health Organization acknowledged on Monday that the outbreak is now concentrated in men who have sex with men. This was followed by a statement by the Director-General of the WHO, which said that “stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus.”
Many people misunderstand how monkeypox is transmitted , and some news reports do little to clear up this confusion. Medical professionals are going online to fight the spread of misinformation that links the virus to other STIs. However, trying to say that monkeypox is not an STI may be overcorrecting.
Anyone can get monkeypox
First things first: monkeypox is not strictly an STI/STD like chlamydia, gonorrhea, or HIV/AIDS. Classifying monkeypox as an STI would be misinformation, and as the WHO says, such a presentation could lead to dangerous stigma and discrimination against the demographics that currently harbor the virus. And at the moment, the virus is certainly concentrated: WHO claims that 99% of cases of monkeypox in the US are associated with sexual contact between men.
Calling monkeypox an STD can lead to a dangerous sense of complacency among people who think they can’t get it until they have sex with homosexual men. In fact, monkeypox can be spread by any close contact , in particular by contact with lesions of an infected person. The growing belief that monkeypox only affects LGBTQ+ people is false and dangerous.
Monkeypox may not be an STI, but it is spreading as such – for now
So let me be very clear: monkeypox is not an STI. Now let me clarify: monkeypox is currently spread as an STI. The way the virus is currently transmitted from person to person should inform how treatment is being rolled out and that the outbreak is being successfully contained.
While it’s important to combat the stigma that “only gay men” get monkeypox, the push to say it’s not an STI obscures the fact that the people who need treatment now are 99% men who have sex with others. men. The semantics are important, as is ensuring that the right population gets initial access to vaccines.
It is important to remember that a virus often strikes a specific community before spreading to the general population. And there is little reason to assume that monkeypox will remain restricted to gays, bisexuals and homosexuals indefinitely. People outside of the demographic currently hit the hardest should not be complacent; there is no guarantee that the virus will not spread to the wider population.
Read here about how to reduce your risk of contracting monkeypox during sex .