Jul 11, 2022
We Must Demand Access to More Monkeypox Vaccines in the Bay Area
‘Nature doesn’t care if you are tired of thinking about disease’
The Center for Disease and Control (CDC) has added new information about the monkeypox virus, its origins, signs and symptoms, prevention measures, how it spreads from person to person, and the available treatments. However, both local and national governments need to ramp up the ability to diagnose and treat this virus with its FDA-approved vaccines.
The maker of the vaccine is Bavarian Nordic. Its brand name in the US is Jynneos.
Monkeypox is closely associated with smallpox; symptoms can appear anywhere between five and thirteen days after infection. Early symptoms include fever, headache, muscle ache, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills, and exhaustion. Once a fever has appeared, a rash tends to erupt, with pustules concentrated on the face, hands, and feet before spreading to other areas of the body. It can spread to the inside of the mouth, the genitals, and the cornea. The rash progresses until it forms a scab which falls off, and in some cases, large sections of dead skin can drop off the body.
Initially, it’s unclear how this current monkeypox outbreak began, but early data suggest that gay, bisexual, and other men with intimate contact make up many of the cases we’re presently seeing; the highest rates of symptomatic monkeypox observed right now include cases with HIV+ patients. California (136) and New York (153) currently have the highest number of cases in the country. However, anyone in close contact with someone with monkeypox is at risk of developing an infection. Most infected individuals, as well, cannot identify the exact source of where they might have contracted the disease, which means that transmission of monkeypox is happening with much more ease — and at far higher rates — than we think.
The Los Angeles Public Health Department expanded the monkeypox vaccine availability starting today, July 11, with the arrival of an additional 6,000 JYNNEOS-made vaccine units this week. Starting again: Due to the limited supply from the federal government, vaccines are still being allotted to residents at higher risk of exposure.
Writer, AIDS historian, and filmmaker Leo Herrera has been talking about the virus on his podcast, A Bumpy Ride, over the past few weeks and says: “This is not a time to panic, but now is the time for education and self-care. Know the symptoms and how to spot the rash. Do body checks on yourself and your partners. Know your local case numbers and how to access the vaccines. This disease is not cute. The three-week quarantine is rough on minds and wallets. Remember lessons from Covid-19 and HIV. Arm yourself with information. Nature doesn’t care if you are tired of thinking about disease.”
The response from the United States Government has been slow — making our community enraged at the lack of information and vaccine access. In San Francisco, I urge you to contact the San Francisco Department of Communicable Disease Control and demand that more monkeypox vaccine units become more widely available to our community. You can find the contact information for the City department below:
San Francisco Department of Communicable Disease Control Unit
25 Van Ness Ave, 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 554–2830 tel
(415) 554–2848 fax
ABC7 news anchor Reggie Aqui has been very vocal about the monkeypox virus on the station’s morning news program for a few weeks — stating that there isn’t enough being done. Aqui asked Peter Chin-Hong, MD, an infectious disease specialist “for gay men at SF Pride events…it can take two weeks to see Monkeypox symptoms. Dore alley events are at the end of the month. Then Folsom a month later. So what do we do?”
Chin-Hong replied that he’s “hopeful” that, by Dore, we will have “enough vaccines for anyone who wants to get it.”
Kevin Kwong is an illustrator living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has recently been sharing how scary, uncomfortable, and painful his bout with monkeypox has been (though the infectious disease specialist he is seeing said that his initial tests were not valid because they were not properly taken due to a lack of any processed in place at the hospital) on Instagram. Kwong is doing much better and hopes that sharing his journey will convince people to seek out vaccines. He shared the uncomfortable photos featured at the top of this article on his Instagram Story.
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation has taken the lead by informing the public of the latest updated information. There will be a town hall on Tuesday, July 12th, from 6 pm to 7 pm., where they will answer questions and facilitate a discussion about how the infection is spreading in the Bay Area. The forum will include messaging about testing and treatment, symptoms, unmet needs around vaccine access, and how to get involved for vaccine access for our communities.
In the East Bay, Steamworks has taken the lead as an active participant in our communities health. In partnership with the City of Berkeley Department of Health, the Alameda County Public Health Department, and the California Department of Public Health will host four weekly Wednesday monkeypox vaccination clinics.
The clinics will start at noon and continue until the allocated doses have been administered to the public. There will be 300 doses per week — given on a first-come-first-served basis.
Steamworks, 2107 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
Noon, Wednesday, July 13
Noon, Wednesday, July 20
Noon, Wednesday, July 27
Noon, Wednesday, August 3
While we are on the subject of infectious diseases, there is a considerable influx of COVID-19 cases in San Francisco — from June 26 through July 9; there have been over 6,800 cases noted at a rate of about 430 per day. We have been going through this scenario long enough to understand these infection patterns. We all know how to stay staff and protect each other. Stay the fuck home if you don’t feel good, and wear a damn mask.
You would’ve thought we’d have learned from our past mistakes during both the AIDS crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, and had heeded the essential lessons learned from the smallpox epidemic. Similar to these other virus initiatives, surveillance, case-finding, screening, contact-tracking, quarantine, and communication campaigns to debunk misinformation are central to curbing the spread of monkeypox.
