The Puerto Rico Department of Health announced this Saturday that confirmed cases of monkeypox on the island amount to 50 and that joins organizations of the LGBTTIQ community to vaccinate the contacts of those infected.
The agency will be vaccinating tomorrow, Sunday, August 14, at its facilities, as a result of a joint effort by the organizations Coaí, Inc., Puerto Rico for All, and the True Self Foundation.
"Again, as happened with covid-19, we began to join forces with all sectors to bring health to all population groups"Health Secretary Carlos Mellado López said in a statement.
This vaccination appointment is aimed at people considered contacts and identified through the Surveillance and Tracking System of the Island’s Epidemiology Office.
"We urge these people to meet, protect their lives in order to avoid chains of transmission and contagion."Mellado López stressed.
To date, they have been administered 247 JYNNEOS Vaccines on the island, which has received a total of 2,807 doses.
The activist Pedro Julio Serrano, president of Puerto Rico for All, also urged "people from the LGBTTIQ communities to comply with the requirements of this first phase of mass vaccination".
"It is imperative that LGBTTIQ people, in the same way that we get vaccinated against covid, prioritize this monkeypox vaccination process"he asserted.
For his part, José Joaquín Mulinelli, executive director of Coaí, Inc., recalled that although it is not a sexually transmitted infection, monkeypox has particularly affected people from the LGBTTIQ communities.
"We invite people who meet the criteria to get vaccinated immediately in the face of the emergency we encounter. We have to protect ourselves to stop the spread of this virus as soon as possible"he urged.
Along the same lines, Michael Pagán Castañer, executive director of the True Self Foundation, insisted that "particularly gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, are being disproportionately affected".
"In the face of this public health emergency, it is time for solidarity and action. not of stigma"he added.
