The United States is reserving about 50,000 extra doses of monkeypox vaccine for distribution at upcoming gay pride venues, health officials said Thursday.
The number of doses sent to each area will be based on factors such as the magnitude of the event, how many health workers will be available to administer the injections, and how many participants are considered to be at high risk of contracting the virus.
“More injections is the way to control the outbreak,” Bon Fenton, White House monkeypox response coordinator, told reporters Thursday. He added that the goal is to go where the patients are.
At least a dozen gay pride events are scheduled for the next two months across the United States, including large rallies in Atlanta and New Orleans in early September. Federal officials said they will send up to 2,000 additional doses to North Carolina, where Charlotte’s gay pride parade and festival is taking place this weekend.
Southern Decadence, one of the largest LGBTQ events in the country, is expected to draw 200,000 or more people to New Orleans on Labor Day weekend. The Bourbon Street Extravaganza, a free concert that is part of the event, was canceled over monkeypox fears, organizers said this week.
Frank Perez, former grand marshal of the parade that is the main celebration of the Southern Decadence, said several gay bars have already had vaccination events. He said that so far the authorities have done an adequate job with the vaccination campaign, although “more is better”.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warned that “although we are offering the vaccine at those events for people at high risk, it is a series of vaccines of two doses, and receiving the vaccine at the event will not provide protection during the event itself.”
Health authorities have called for other measures to prevent the spread of the virus, including temporarily limiting the number of sexual partners.
Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where people are infected by the bites of rodents and other small animals, but it was not considered a disease that spread easily between people until May, when infections emerged in Europe and the United States.
More than 39,000 cases have been reported in countries that have historically not had monkeypox. The vast majority have occurred in men who have sex with men, but health authorities stress that anyone can get the virus.
The United States has the highest number of infections in the world: more than 13,500. Ninety-eight percent of cases in the United States have occurred in men who recently had sex with other men.
Health officials say the virus has been spreading mostly through skin-to-skin contact, but warn it could be transmitted in other ways as well, including touching a bed top used by someone infected.
