On May 24, the Sacramento Public Health Department said there is a likely case of monkeypox in the county, which would be the first reported case in California following international concerns regarding an outbreak.

While monkeypox is found in Central and West Africa, it is uncommon in the United States and Europe. But recently, cases have been detected in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Spain. As of May 23, roughly 160 people have been diagnosed with the disease in non-African countries.

The U.K. Health Security Agency warned on May 19 that gay and bisexual men could be at particular risk after identifying cases in several men this month. Following that warning, homophobic posts began appearing on social media.

“They told us to lock down and stop living our lives for years to avoid COVID but now they say it would be stigmatizing and unfair to tell gay men to stop having random sex with strangers to avoid monkeypox,” wrote “The Daily Wire” far-right political commentator Matt Walsh. “These are our ‘public health experts,’ folks.”

Dr. Kaiyti Duffy, the chief medical officer at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, stressed that any sexual contact, regardless of orientation, is just one potential risk..

“There’s nothing that is uniquely specific about this virus as it pertains to LGBT people or gay men and bisexual men,” Duffy said, who went on to say that this isn’t even the first outbreak that’s occurred in the U.S., citing a cluster of cases in 2003.

The homophobic comments gained momentum due to one location where cases seem to have spread.

“The clusters that we saw in Europe seem to have started with gay and bisexual men in a dance club or some area where they had prolonged contact,” Duffy added. “There is an increased vulnerability in that population, but nothing about the transmission is specific to this community. The prevalence of monkeypox in the world is extremely low in all populations including [men who have sex with men]. And so, when we’re getting warnings to ask people about travel to different places in the world where this is endemic, and then another category is MSM, that seems like it is tinged with homophobia. Even within this community, this is extremely rare.”

“What we know about monkeypox is that while it is affecting the LGBTQ+ community globally, it is not a sexually transmitted disease and anyone can contract monkeypox through close personal contact regardless of sexual orientation,” Stonewall Democratic Club president Alex Mohajer said. “Attempts to make queer people the boogeyman by conservative politicians and politicizing the virus is dangerous and unacceptable, and an age-old tactic used to justify stripping rights away from minorities.”

Duffy said that when a contagious virus is falsely pinned on a single population, “we close off recognition of potential cases in other communities.”

“That’s a danger in something like this that could be contagious,” Duffy added.

“Like all public health concerns, doing research and understanding your risk goes a long way toward protecting yourself from disease,” West Hollywood Councilman John D’Amico said. “The stories I have read seem to suggest that this is a national outbreak not limited to MSM, and that close, especially intimate contact, can be a vector for infection.”

The Los Angeles Department of Public Health describes monkeypox as “a rare but potentially serious viral illness that typically begins with flu-like illness and swelling of the lymph nodes and progresses to a rash on the face and body. Most infections last 2-4 weeks.”

While “the virus does not spread easily between people,” with most individuals typically exposed through infected animals and animal products in Central and West Africa, the virus can spread through “body fluids, monkeypox sores and items that have been contaminated with fluids or sores” and “respiratory droplets following prolonged face-to-face contact.”

“Mostly it’s through contact with the lesions on somebody’s body,” Duffy said. “So, the rash of monkeypox goes through several different stages, and any exposure, prolonged exposure, on someone else’s skin can lead to transmission. And that really has nothing specific [to do with] sexual orientation at all. This is not a major risk or something we need to batten down the hatches and prepare for. Anybody who is immediately recovering from a flu-like illness or demonstrating signs or symptoms of a flu-like illness or a rash, it’s a good idea not to be sexually active in that moment, and I would say that’s true regardless of whether or not we were having this outbreak.”

The Center for Disease Control has altered health care providers to watch for any patients that have symptoms consistent with monkeypox, and the LADPH is working with the CDC and the California Department of Public Health on the issue.

For information, visit cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox.