“Regarding the question of sexual transmission, I believe that we cannot yet define this strictly as a sexually transmitted disease,” said Dr. They stress, however, that the risk to the general population is low.Īs of Thursday, Italy had confirmed 10 cases of Monkeypox, some but not all in people who had traveled to Spain’s Canary Islands. Health officials around the world are keeping watch for more cases because, for the first time, the disease appears to be spreading among people who didn’t travel to Africa. However, the WHO says that in recent times 3-6% of cases were fatal. Most people recover within two to four weeks without needing hospitalization. It’s a surprising outbreak of a disease that rarely appears outside Africa, where it has remained a serious health threat since the first cases in human were discovered in the 1970s.Įxperts say anyone can be infected through close contact with a sick person, their clothing or bedsheets. Health authorities in Europe, North America, Israel and Australia have identified more than 150 cases of the disease in recent weeks. What’s happening is somewhat similar to the first cases of HIV.” “We are facing an outbreak that unfortunately once again has hit LGBTQ people, and especially gay and bisexual men. “This is a disease that any member of the population can get,” Blázquez said. So far, Spanish authorities have not mentioned any sweeping public health measures that would impede large gatherings.īut beyond the Pride March, Blázquez said he is worried that society could make the same mistake it did at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s, when the focus on the disease among gay men obscured its spread among the wider population. And then what stigma could be generated by these legal measures that sometimes are discriminatory.” We don’t know what the level of transmission of the virus will be or what legal measures could be taken. “Pride is a huge party, it is a moment to make our voice be heard, that brings lots of people together,” Mario Blázquez, coordinator of health programs for the LGBTQ group COGAM in Madrid, told The Associated Press.īlázquez said he’s worried that next month’s Pride celebrations could be endangered by overzealous restrictions driven in part by prejudice and in part by the fears of another public health emergency on top of the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.
Organizers say the city’s last pre-pandemic Pride celebration, in 2019, drew roughly 1.6 million revelers, though police put the figure at around 400,000.
It is expected to draw large crowds, unlike the last two years’ events, which were scaled down or canceled because of COVID-19 restrictions. The outbreak in Spain comes in the run-up to Madrid’s Gay Pride celebration, which will happen in early July. A top adviser to the World Health Organization said the outbreak was likely triggered by sexual activity at two recent mass events in Europe Most of the known cases in Europe have been among men who have sex with men, according to authorities in Britain, Spain, Germany and Portugal.
But some people, particularly gay and bisexual men, believe there is a touch of homophobic hysteria in the wider public’s reaction to the rare outbreak of the disease outside of Africa, where it has long been endemic.