Hopefully we handle it better than we did HIV
Also it's pride right now sooo... Just like Chinese New Year couldn't have picked a more opportune time.
“…as far as we can tell”. How do we know if we’re not testing enough and have no concept of the actual scale of the outbreak?
There’s no evidence that the mode of transmission of this variant is specifically sexual. Monkeypox in general can be spread by close contact (such as e.g. holding hands, sharing bedsheets, …).
The CDC really did a real number on its own credibility by showing itself to willfully stray from reasonable public health strategies in order to push political agendas. I wonder how much more monkeypox will spread above what it otherwise would do to this same politics over health approach that puts “prevent stigmatization” over “save lives”
This is even kind of hinted at in the article. The symptoms people are presenting with are different from classic monkeypox outbreaks, and as far as anyone can tell the actual disease hasn't changed and this is all due to the route of transmission.
Previous Monkeypox outbreaks have not been linked primarily to sexual transmission. It may be that the initial cluster of the current outbreak is caused by people meeting up for sex (although really, who knows?), but given what we already know about the disease, it would be unwise to jump to the conclusion that sex itself is necessary for efficient transmission.
If there's really a consensus among experts that sexual transmission (rather than just transmission via contact during sex) is playing a key role here, then by all means reference this. I've been unable to find anything of the sort.
>most of the spread so far being amongst the more sexually promiscuous parts of the gay male community...
Here you're moving away from informed speculation (which is already unwise at this early stage, in my opinion) and simply repeating sensationalist nonsense from less reputable sections of the news media. There is absolutely no reliable data on how 'promiscuous' the people who have been infected so far are.
"The clinical presentation is often atypical, with few lesions localized to the genital, perineal/perianal or peri-oral area that do not spread further, and an asynchronous rash that appears prior to the development of a prodromal phase (i.e. lymphadenopathy, fever, malaise)." [1]
[1] https://www.who.int/news/item/25-06-2022-meeting-of-the-inte...
For example, the 'atypicality' of the presentation could simply be a consequence of MSM who are used to getting sexual health checkups being more comfortable with showing their genital sores to a doctor or nurse than other population groups.
I'm not sure if the presence of genital lesions is necessarily even a good indicator that transmission was via sex. See e.g. https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/4/4/ofx168/4588539
If such figures aren't being published, it isn't because of a conspiracy – it's just because no-one knows.
You'd then send them a survey with questions like "how many hours were you in the same room as this person", "did you touch their bedding", "did you have sex", "which days, how many times, what type of sex?" etc.
Using those results together with information about whether each contact got infected or not you should be able to get a good indication of the causes of transmission. More importantly you can probably also find what does not cause transmission, allowing those to be eliminated from public health guidance.
I think the main limiting factor for such a survey will be people being dishonest on the survey. It only takes a few people to say "nah we just talked and didn't have sex" (when in fact they did, and got infected), and suddenly the survey results cause incorrect health guidance to be issued, putting others at risk.
* The majority if cases of Monkeypox are both symptomatic and reported.
* The majority of transmissions occur by contact between people who know each other personally (rather than e.g. brushing up against each other in a tube carriage).
* It is possible to share names and other details in a way that respects people’s privacy. (On the face of it, sending out surveys saying 'Sam Jones had Monkeypox, did you kiss them last week?' is just unlawful.)
We may eventually get reliable information about the main vectors for the current outbreak. At present, we haven’t. No-one is hiding anything. We just don’t know because it’s difficult to find out.
edit: Also note the following from the article:
>For many of the confirmed cases, health officials don't know how the person caught the virus. Those infected haven't traveled or come into contact with another infected person. That means the virus is spreading in some communities and cities, cryptically.
And the nether skin folds also tend to have more skin conditions due to the lack of natural ventilation. And sex is often practiced in poorly lit environments at moments when people are not super observant..
On the same hand it seems pretty unlikely that bedsheets are causing more infections than sex or hookups. Though the two are closely related ;)
I don’t see any terminological difficulty here. You can easily catch a cold from someone by having sex with them, but no-one suggests that colds are STDs.
The ‘trend’ also has to be viewed against a background of underdiagnosis and limited testing. It may simply be that gay men are more likely to end up getting tested for Monkeypox.
also you have a hilarious typo. you must be quite the stud!
Please start practicing abstinence before you get everyone sick, you sexy bastard!