With 386 confirmed cases of monkeypox in San Francisco as of August 2, it's getting to the point where probably just about everyone in the city's LGBTQ community knows someone who has had or has the virus.
World Health Organization director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared July 23 that monkeypox is a public health emergency of international concern — the global agency's highest level of alarm — as cases continue to rise steeply.
Even as the SF health department unveiled expanded monkeypox vaccine eligibility, it came under criticism from a Board of Supervisors committee for communications failures and its drop-in vaccine clinic that has left people waiting in line for hours.
Six weeks after the first monkeypox case was identified in San Francisco, nearly all cases in the city are still occurring among gay and bisexual men, according to a report presented at the July 19 Health Commission meeting.
A Berkeley health official cited "misinformation" but some people waiting in line July 13 recounted being offered to pay for a single-day membership to get the monkeypox vaccine quicker.
The nearly 600 participants of a July 12 virtual town hall sponsored by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation raised many questions about the city's monkeypox outbreak, but the answers weren't always satisfying.
Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, health officials, and community advocates called on the federal government to do more to address the ongoing monkeypox outbreak at a July 12 news conference on the steps of City Hall.
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the city's health department are hosting a virtual forum on the monkeypox outbreak to help inform the public about the latest health crisis provoking worry across the globe.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health is starting to offer monkeypox vaccines to more at-risk gay and bisexual men and transgender people in an effort to stem the growing outbreak.
Screening people with HIV for precancerous anal cell changes and treating them early cuts the risk of anal cancer by more than half, according to results from the ANCHOR study published June 16 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
More than two years into the pandemic, people are ready to party, but COVID-19 is still with us, and the emergence of monkeypox among gay and bisexual men presents a new health threat.