Public Health France has identified 1,567 patients in the country since May. in Nice, every week, Doctor Eric Cua, infectious disease specialist at L’Archet 1 hospital and his colleagues, receive “a dozen cases” of monkeypox, “a disease from which one does not die but of which certain forms can be very painful”.
If it is difficult to establish an accurate local count (not all patients are screened or declared), “the disease is progressing on the Côte d’Azur”warns the doctor.
Among the patients, almost all are men, who have sex with men (MSM).
Is monkeypox a sexually transmitted infection (STI)?
No. Just like Covid is not an STI, but if you have sex with an infected person, you can get infected. The condom does not protect.
How does she get caught?
Monkeypox is transmitted by direct contact with cutaneous, oral or genital lesions (pimples, vesicles). So obviously thanks to an intimate, sexual or sensual relationship. The main factor of propagation is the number of partners. But like chickenpox, which is exchanged by droplets: we can catch monkeypox via the sputters of a person who speaks to us very closely and for a very long time.
Why are homosexuals more affected?
It seems that this disease – which comes from Africa – spread to us after Gay Pride in Maspalomas in the Canary Islands where 250,000 Europeans gathered to party. It created a gay cluster. Like an evangelical gathering in Alsace had created a Covid cluster at the start of the epidemic. We have not stigmatized the religious. We should not stigmatize the gay community. However, 99.9% of our patients in Nice are MSM. We must not fall into otherworldliness and be clear in the prevention messages.
What are these messages?
It is not a question of being moralistic but the best way to avoid contamination is to reduce the number of partners and to avoid any intimate contact with a person who has suspicious lesions.
And get vaccinated?
We need to vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. But you have to wait six weeks to be protected.