Monkeypox: UK Response Branded “Scandalous” By Sexual Health Experts

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Monkeypox: UK Response Branded “Scandalous” By Sexual Health Experts Jamie Wareham Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Founder, QueerAF – I report on LGBTQ+ life, identities and being queer Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Sep 14, 2022, 04:00am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin VIENNA, AUSTRIA – JUNE 10: Will Nutland speaks at the Life Ball 2017 press conference at Town Hall .

. . [+] on June 10, 2017 in Vienna, Austria.

The Life Ball, an annual charity ball raising funds for HIV & AIDS projects, will take place today at the city hall in Vienna. (Photo by Florian Wieser/Life Ball 2017/Getty Images) Getty Images The UK government’s response to monkeypox has been branded as “scandalous” by leading sexual health expert Dr Will Nutland. Speaking to the What The Pox? podcast by QueerAF, the co-founder of The Love Tank and PrEPster said the response to monkeypox had been “incompetent and frustrating.

” The UK response to monkeypox has been funnelled through sexual health services. But these have faced several years of budget cuts. The services are funded differently to from most NHS services – through local authority budgets instead.

“Our sexual health services are poorly funded,” Dr Will Nutland told the podcast. “So if you add David Cameron’s austerity cuts, 12 years of cuts to public health services, the appalling leadership of Boris Johnson, then the scandalous silence of ministers working in the health department? It has created the perfect storm for the most incompetent and frustrating response to monkeypox. ” Nutland, who is also a honorary assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, squarely lies his frustration with those in the government.

In stark contrast, he praised those on the frontline of the outbreak. “I’m not apportioning blame to NHS staff or people working in UK Health Security Agency (UK HSA). The medical response to monkeypox has been absolutely brilliant.

I’m really impressed by staff in the NHS and epidemiologists like those at the UK HSA working late into the night to puzzle out what’s going on. MORE FOR YOU Stuff You Shouldn’t Say To Disabled People 3 Ways Disability Culture Has Been Changing I’m Right And You’re Wrong: Social Media Sins “But what monkeypox has done is shone a light on the cracks. On the lack of investment in our public health services and infastructure.

” Sarah Mulindwa, TV personality on Channel 4’s The Sex Clinic and 56 Dean Street specialist sexual health nurse, agrees, telling the podcast: “Whenever there is budget cuts, unfortunately, sexual health services are at the top of the list. So already, before any virus like monkeypox hits the population, we already have problems with people accessing services” During the Conservative leadership campaign, trans rights became a political football . But not one of the candidates mentioned monkeypox despite it affecting the lives of many sexually active gay, bi and men who have sex with men.

Since being appointed Health Secretary by the new prime minister Liz Truss, Thérèse Coffey has been urged to take the disease more seriously or risk it becoming endemic in the UK. Promotional image for What The Pox podcast featuring Sarah Mulindwa and Marc Thompson QueerAF What can the UK learn from monkeypox, to prevent future infectious diseases? For the sexual health experts the show spoke to it was clear they’re focused on monkeypox. But they all said the lessons the UK could learn from this outbreak could apply to or even prevent future outbreaks.

Indeed, monkeypox has become another issue showing the broader set of problems the NHS faces. “We need a root and branch restructuring of the way public health is organised,” says Nutland. “Including how services are funded, and we need millions of pounds pumped into sexual health services to help them stay afloat and keep them fit for purpose and modernise.

Without that we’re going to see the same situation when we see the next infectious disease outbreak. ” Just as we learned from Covid-19, we live in one big connected world now. Respiratory infections that begin in Asia, will spread across the world.

Viruses endemic in Africa will spread to the global north too. “My concern is that if we don’t sort this out now with monkeypox, the not if but when the next infectious disease outbreak happens, whether it’s within gay and bi men or marginalised people we’re going to see exactly the same shambles,” Nutland adds. It’s why many sexual health experts like Sarah Mulindwa have spoken about how shameful it is that the global north is only just taking notice.

After all doctors in West and Central Africa, where it’s been endemic since the 1970s, have been trying to raise alarm bells about a rapid increase in transmission. “We should have known, that something that’s been endemic for a number of years – it was only a matter of time before it comes over. ” Mulindwa tells the What The Pox? podcast.

“There is a running theme around who these viruses affect, and how quick the response is. It begs the question if this was affecting straight white people – maybe there would have been [a response] in place a long time and we wouldn’t be in this situation. ” Understand even more LGBTQIA+ news this week.

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