A laboratory worker takes the reagent for a monkeypox detection test. RUNGROJ YONGRIT (EFE)
Brazil is the country in Latin America with the most cases of monkeypox.
According to the most recent data from the Ministry of Health, updated on Friday, there are 2,584 confirmed cases.
The first was detected on June 8 and at the moment there was only one deceased, a 41-year-old man who was being treated for cancer with chemotherapy in the city of Belo Horizonte.
The majority of cases, the authorities insist, are mild and should not generate social panic.
This week, the ministry raised the alert to the third level, the last step before declaring a national public health emergency, as ended up happening with the covid-19 pandemic.
The current level of alert is given because there is community transmission of cases, there are no drugs to treat or prevent the disease, and because the impact on the different spheres of management of the public health system requires a broad government response.
“It is a situation of exceptional gravity”, points out the internal document of the ministry published a few days ago.
At the moment, the Brazilian government is negotiating with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) the purchase of 50,000 doses of the vaccine made by a Danish laboratory.
According to the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, the first doses could arrive in September and will go entirely to health professionals who handle patient samples and people with direct contact with patients.
A massive vaccination campaign, as was done with covid-19, is ruled out.
In part because there are no vaccines for everyone, neither in Brazil nor in the rest of the world.
In 1980, with the eradication of smallpox decreed by the World Health Organization (WHO), they stopped being produced.
"That there are not enough vaccines is not anyone's fault, it is not that they are not negotiating or that they do not want to buy, it is that there are not," explains the secretary of Science, Research and Development in Health of the state government in a telephone conversation. from São Paulo, David Uip.
In contrast to the disastrous management of the covid-19 pandemic by the Bolsonaro government, marked by lack of coordination and lack of interest in vaccines, this time there seems to be more harmony between São Paulo and the central government.
"We are very well connected, we talk practically every day," says the infectologist.
The state of São Paulo is the most affected by the disease (according to the latest balance, there are 1,820 cases) and the one that had the strongest response.
This week, it launched a plan that includes 93 rearguard hospitals, the training of more than 3,000 health professionals and a 24-hour service to resolve doubts about the diagnosis and clinical management of patients with monkeypox.
In addition, the São Paulo Butantan Institute created a committee to start working on a vaccine against the disease.
The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation of Rio de Janeiro also claims to have the capacity to produce the vaccine if it is defined as strategic by the Ministry of Health.
The two are leading public institutions, they are among the largest vaccine manufacturers in Latin America and in recent months tens of millions of vaccines against covid-19 have come out of their facilities.
But in the absence of vaccines, for now what remains is to focus on awareness, highlights Uip.
The prestigious infectologist recalls that the disease a priori has very generic symptoms (fever, headache, swollen glands...) but that it begins to be more eloquent when the marks appear on the skin.
He is working on awareness campaigns, but it is not easy to carry them out.
The reason is the least curious: Brazil is at the gates of the October elections and the electoral law prevents institutional advertising since July 2.
"We are trying to talk with the electoral courts, because there is an emergency in health, raising awareness is essential," says Uip.
In his opinion, the main challenge is to communicate with transparency, but without stigmatizing sectors of the population.
At the moment, the vast majority of cases of monkeypox occur in men who have sex with men, but the Secretary of Science asks not to single out gay men, especially since circumstances may change shortly.
The entire population is exposed.
Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted disease, it is spread by skin-to-skin contact.
“We cannot make mistakes again,” he says, referring to the stigma that this group suffered decades ago with HIV.
President Jair Bolsonaro, on the other hand, dedicated his only reference to the disease so far to making a homophobic joke.
During a long conversation on a podcast, he mocked the presenter when he said that he would vaccinate himself if he could, implying that he would be gay.
Two trans councilors from the leftist Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), Erika Hilton and Natasha Ferreira, denounced Bolsonaro before the Prosecutor's Office for homophobia.
"No type of negative stigma and violence, from the most subtle to the most explicit, can go unpunished," Hilton told the
Estado de São Paulo newspaper.
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