Gay Black and Latino Men Account for Over 50% of U.S. Monkeypox Cases

The current monkeypox outbreak in the United States is disproportionately affecting Black and Latino men who have sex with men in a disturbing trend that mirrors the HIV epidemic.

POZ:

More than half of people with monkeypox in the United States are now Black and Latino men who have sex with men, according to the latest demographic data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The shift toward gay and bisexual men of color increasingly mirrors long-standing disparities in the U.S. HIV epidemic.

“We’re creating a caste system of who is going to get access to what is needed for monkeypox,” longtime AIDS activist Gregg Gonsalves, PhD, now at the Yale School of Public Health, told PBS. “What we’re seeing is that the health disparities we’ve seen in COVID, we’ve seen in HIV, are recapitulating themselves with this new virus.”

As of August 16, the CDC has identified 12,689 monkeypox cases in the United States. Worldwide, there are now more than 38,000 cases, most of them in countries where monkeypox had not been reported prior to this outbreak.While anyone can get monkeypox through close physical contact, cases remain overwhelmingly concentrated among gay, bisexual, transgender and other men who have sex with men. A new report from the CDC shows that 99% of cases with available data were among men, and 94% reported sex or other close intimate contact with other men.

As of July 27, the CDC had received case reports with demographic data for just 1,195 (41%) of the 2,891 cases identified at that point, highlighting major gaps in reporting by states. Of the cases with available race and ethnicity data, 41% were white, 28% were Latino and 26% were Black.

For comparison, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the population is 59% white, 19% Latino, 14% Black and 6% Asian or Pacific Islander. Among people living with HIV in 2019, 29% were white, 25% were Latino, 40% were Black and 2% were Asian or Pacific Islander. Among gay and bisexual men newly diagnosed with HIV in 2019, 25% were white, 32% were Latino and 37% were Black.

The CDC report may actually understate these disparities, as some jurisdictions with greater racial and ethnic diversity have not submitted detailed case data to the CDC. What’s more, the proportion of Black and Latino people relative to white people with monkeypox has risen in recent weeks, and the report covers less than one tenth of the current case tally.

Blacks and Latinos, who represent approximately one third (34%) of the general population, account for more than one half (54%) of monkeypox cases, according to the @CDCgov. 😱😢
What can we do to help? 👉https://t.co/OKBxcujl5M pic.twitter.com/dTEBCGzPEu

— Salud America! (@SaludAmerica) August 15, 2022

The national monkey public health emergency announced on August 4 could encourage more states to share their data with the CDC. “This public health emergency will allow us to explore additional strategies to get vaccines and treatments more quickly to impacted communities, and it will allow us to get more data from jurisdictions so we can effectively track and attack this outbreak,” new national monkeypox response coordinator Bob Fenton told reporters during a media briefing.