you're very welcome back now the world
health organization has declared the
monkey pox virus to now be a global
emergency as attention shifts towards
the smallpox vaccine as a possible
solution uh infectious diseases doctor
at ucd christine kelly joins us with
more on this alongside hiv ireland
empower program manager adam shanley who
is with us via skype this morning adam
thank you so much for joining us
christine thank you for coming uh for
coming in to us can can you explain to
us why the who has declared monkey pox a
global emergency yeah sure so i mean the
first thing to say that monkey pox is
not a new virus it's been circulating in
several countries for decades now um
countries like the democratic republic
of congo and nigeria
and so we know that that's already been
happening at fairly low levels compared
to what we currently have for many years
but what we're now seeing is outbreaks
of monkey parks and countries that
wouldn't usually have monkey pox so that
is the first concerning feature and but
we're also seeing a very rapid increase
in the number of cases which is also
quite concerning and so the who have
declared um
an emergency and the reason for the main
reason for them doing that practically
is that that enables countries to
mobilize resources and and to put more
resources and energy into dealing with
this outbreak and trying to stem it
before it gets worse okay so once the
classification changes then yeah they
can mobilize more resources and get
working essentially that's the main
thing and it gets a little bit more
attention and things like that into what
is a rapidly kind of uh growing
situation as part of the declaration and
their observations they have identified
uh gay men and men that have sex with
men as being uh like the primary uh
uh are a primary um
risks of the disease yeah so that's
right and actually there's a big study
that was released recently um over
several countries that had over 500
cases described in it and they showed in
that that um that were 100 men that were
affected and 98 were from gay bisexual
and other men who have sex with men
communities okay and so it is by and
large affecting uh these people and
it's all communities and in this
community adam if we could just have a
quick chat with you what is it that
you're hearing from gay and bisexual men
their main concerns about this because
christine was saying to us there's 85
cases in ireland now
yeah i guess we're we're hearing people
are coming forward with um kind of odd
symptoms i guess we've got a really good
uh
kind of history of health seeking
behavior in in our community so when we
kind of see something is is not right we
have a good history of heading to the
doctor or going to our sexual health
services and that's kind of helped in
terms of kind of raising the alarm that
this is something new and kind of
strange symptoms like uh kind of spots
and ulcers and rashes that are appearing
um across the body and so
a couple weeks ago um when uh
in in london when the first kind of
cases were identified the kind of red
flag was raised and and guys have been
really kind of i guess conscious and
we've been doing a lot of awareness work
for people to look out for those
symptoms and come forward for testing
and and as as christine had said you
know
um
the who kind of calling it a public
health emergency has allowed for those
resources uh to kind of trickle into the
community and for us to kind of really
bolster our awareness and and encourage
people to come forward for testing and
adam
in terms of the reaction from the gay
community like is there a risk of like
spreading panic
and fear are people on a high alert or
are they in a position to sort of take
in their stride and just ask the
appropriate questions and deal with it
yeah i i definitely think we're we're
avoiding fear i think concern is
definitely uh is definitely within the
community i mean there's a there's a
virus that's that's kind of
disproportionately affecting our
community
and and people are experiencing you know
various some people are are experiencing
mild symptoms and they can kind of get
through it but for some people it's
really really painful and the the kind
of spots and ulcers that people are
getting and so there's definite concern
and i guess as part of our awareness
work is that we're trying to encourage
people not to panic to recognize the
symptoms and to to help them i guess
with um the the tips
in terms of management and and taking
you know control of of how how it feels
but i guess you know what we really want
people to do is just to be on a level of
alert
and more people that recognize that they
might have it and come forward for
testing we might be able to control the
outbreak because we certainly don't want
this to be stigmatized we've all been
there before where a disease like hiv
was stigmatized amongst the gay
community it's not this is not a gay
community disease it's it's worrying for
everyone but it's not to be considered
christine is it it's not an std so an
sti or is it so it's it's not strictly
um we're still
working out lots of information about it
it's very new it's only kind of been
behaving like this for a couple of
months so there's still a lot to
understand the discussion about whether
it's an sti or not is nuanced and i
think there's a lot more um medical
information that's needed um but the
main method of transmission at the
minute um is um thought to be through
skin to skin contact so very close
contact with the the lesions the little
bumps that come up in the skin yeah but
is it what like you've said it's been
like we know it's been around since the
70s
and now it's it's jumping
to places like europe and america now
we're getting concerned is that not a
bit worrying that once it's contained in
effort we're not paying attention to it
that's really where we and for me that's
the main thing is that um when we have
these so
monkey pox until very recently was
referred to as neglected tropical
disease and because they're diseases
that happen in other parts of the world
that we don't pay attention to and so
diseases like this are circulating on a
regular basis but they're never really
nipped in the bud there aren't the
resources that's put into treatment of
vaccines in order to stem those
infections
treatments and vaccines that are freely
available by the way
and
so
what happens is if we neglect those as
the term says there's then a risk of um
spreading to other places
that the potential for spread
tell us about then the the m power
program
yeah so the empire program i'm at hiv
ireland is a kind of a suite of
interventions and resources and services
and that look to respond to the sexual
health and wellbeing needs of of gay and
bisexual men so we do a whole host of
different things including kind of low
threshold access to testing so we do
testing in our bars and clubs and uh and
community spaces and we do lots of
outreach and i guess you know monkey pox
is a really good example of that kind of
mobilizing our community to get out and
talk about something that's kind of you
know affecting our community and so yeah
we we do a whole host of things we make
uh hiv self tests move ireland's first
uh free hiv home test as well so people
gain bisexual men can log on to our
website and uh and and get hold of a
free hiv test okay so
and as it pertains then to monkey you're
dealing with that so you know because
there's a there's a whole wide range of
misinformation on the internet as well
as legitimate proper information and one
of the sites definitely worth looking at
in smallpox is the smallpox vaccine is
being used correct it is currently being
used for people who are close contacts
who are very close-knit in ireland and
it's working so we're still gathering
information about exactly how effective
it is and so we're still in the early
days but it's thought to be very
effective but it could have been used in
certain countries in
africa it never works well it has been
used to a certain extent but perhaps not
big standards
wide range empower dot ie empower dot h
i v ireland dot ie forward slash monkey
pox uh adam thanks for joining us and
christine as well you're very welcome
thank you very much