Saturday, July 23, 2022

The New AIDS?

HIV killed thousands of gay men in the 80s, so far monkeypox has not proven as deadly, but it does seem to have a preference for men who have sexual relations with other men.  Tens of thousands of cases of monkeypox infection have occurred world-wide prompting The Who to declare a global health emergency for the second time in two years.  Only two other diseases have reached this classification, polio and COVID-19.  The the reported cases are overwhelming among homosexual men.  The panel of experts advising the Secretary General of the World Health Organization could not come to a consensus on the matter, but Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus issued the declaration telling reporters that too little is know about the mechanism of transmission, which meets the criteria for international concern.  He also criticized the process for issuing such statements

This is the seventh international  public health emergency since 2007.  Some seventy-five countries including the United States have reported about 16,000 cases of infection. Two children have died in the USA of the disease. Previously monkeypox was common in Africa, but now it has spread worldwide. As African outbreaks flared over the years experts warned that it could become a global risk. The virus is in the same family as the variola virus that causes smallpox.  A health scientist at the University of Nebraska's Center for Health Security said it might take a year or more to get the outbreak under control, and by that time hundreds of thousands will become infected allowing he disease to become embedded in some countries by establishing pathogen reservoirs in animal populations.  US Person aka "Senator Chimp", thinks that outbreaks of previously uncommon and novel diseases are an indication of the increasing degradation of  the global environment.  

Because of its relationship to smallpox, two vaccines are now available,  The safer of the two, called Jynneos, is in limited supply.  The vaccine was developed in the USA, but is manufactured by a small Danish company, which owns the only plant in the world has been shut since last August for planned expansion.  It can supply the USA with two million doses by the end of this year, but that leaves only about 5 million doses for the rest of the world.   Currently, only people at high risk are being vaccinated in this country. The stockpile in this country is around 56,000 doses to be distributed immediately.  An estimated six million homosexual men are at risk in the USA.  The need for government controlled vaccine production facilities is becoming more apparent all the time.  There is little profit in vaccine manufacture, especially against pathogens that are rare, less virulent, or episodic in nature.  Of course those facilities cannot be here since that would be 'SOCIALIST'