As we look forward to 2023, it is worthwhile to check in on the news related to monkeypox, which has been rebranded ‘mpox’ because of woke antics in global and national public health organizations.
Despite it being a hot topic this summer, mpox has nearly disappeared from the media spotlight. However, there were a few bits of information that have recently been published that are worth looking at.
One of the big lessons that should have been learned in the wake of the many covid pandemic response failures is not to promote narrative science and to denounce flawed studies. However, it turns out British officials included “trans women” in the count of “females” infected with monkeypox.
Health officials have been accused of sacrificing science to political correctness by including trans women in official figures for females infected with monkeypox.After last spring’s outbreak of the disease, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) started publishing ‘epidemiological overviews’ detailing the total number of infections to date.The latest, published on December 20, states that of 3,706 ‘confirmed or highly probable cases… where gender information was available, 3,653 were men and 53 were women’.But, questioned last week by The Mail on Sunday, the UKHSA admitted that the 53 figure ‘includes both cis and transgender women’.Nowhere within the 31 epidemiological overviews that the UKHSA has published since June is it revealed that the figures for women also include cases affecting trans women.A technical briefing, published in September, states: ‘Of 45 cases who were women aged 16 and above, 16 out of 44 (36 per cent) with available information were transgender women.’
Such manipulation is dangerous. Not only does it distort correct risk assessment results, but also prevents people from obtaining the truth about the true modes of transmission. Sex between men was fueling the monkeypox outbreak.
A growing body of evidence supports that sexual transmission, particularly through seminal fluids, is occurring with the current MPX outbreak,” said Dr. Aniruddha Hazra, medical director of the University of Chicago Sexual Wellness Clinic, referring to monkeypox and to recent studies that found the virus in semen.Consequently, scientists told NBC News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health authorities should update their monkeypox communication strategies to more strongly emphasize the centrality of intercourse among gay and bisexual men, who comprise nearly all U.S. cases, to the virus’ spread.
Mercifully, there were at least a few adults inc charge of the response. Some good choices were made in vaccine use and directing the infection prevention campaign at the appropriate risk group.
The group of men who have sex with men at highest risk proved willing to change behaviors to avoid infection, according to a CDC study, slowing the virus’ spread while the government scrambled to catch up.A controversial decision to split vaccine doses into fifths and use an intradermal injection method — depositing the vaccine into the skin rather than under it — appears to have paid off as well based on early studies, multiplying the supply without sacrificing the vaccines’ protectiveness.
Cases have dropped to fewer than ten per day for most days in December, and the virus appears to be on the decline.
Nearly 30,000 Americans contracted monkeypox during this summer’s outbreak, which corresponded to the timing of worldwide gay pride events. At least 20 people died. Despite its essentially being dropped from the media radar, there are reasons for lingering concern.
Although the number of monkeypox cases has plummeted, experts caution that the virus could rebound.They said they believe people most at risk probably have resumed their usual sexual behavior. If monkeypox establishes itself in animal hosts in the United States, it could become a permanent threat, as it is in parts of Africa. And the vaccination campaign has slowed.
Monkeypox, we hardly knew ye! I can’t begin to guess what 2023’s featured infectious disease will be.
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