July 29, 2022
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Leading British medical journal BMJ has published new research on monkeypox in London.
All but one of the people with confirmed monkeypox in study are gay or bi men.
Nearly all of them reported having sex with a male recently.
The global monkeypox outbreak is primarily being driven by sex between men, according to the first major peer-reviewed paper to analyze a large set of cases of the virus.
“It clearly is spreading as an STI (sexually transmitted infection) at this point,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
To protect the people at highest risk while trying to contain the spread, public health agencies are focusing their attention on those men — and attacking the virus based on how it’s behaving now.
Now infectious disease specialists are developing an increasingly refined understanding of the predominant conduits of monkeypox transmission, as well as the typical disease course patterns.
Public health experts also theorize that major LGBTQ Pride gatherings in June may have facilitated transmission of the virus.
And given the infection’s incubation period — the new paper puts it at seven days, with a range of three to 20 days — the nation is now possibly seeing the resulting downstream effects of sexual encounters in late June and early July.
All the cases were among men, including one transgender man, 98% of whom identified as gay or bisexual.
This stark demographic finding is in keeping with data on the outbreak from around the world, such as a recent report from the British Health Security Agency finding that of the 699 monkeypox cases for which there was available information, 97% were in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men.
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