Health experts worried Louisiana won't have enough monkeypox v*****es ahead of 'Gay Mardi Gras' festival
Southern Decadence, New Orleans’ self-proclaimed “Gay Mardi Gras,” takes place over Labor Day weekend in September. The festival had over 275,000 participants in 2019, but owing to health concerns over C****-**, it was canceled in 2020 and all but canceled in 2021.
A spokesman for Mayor LaToya Cantrell's office praised the cancellation of several key Southern Decadence events last year: "The safety of all people should be everyone’s top priority."
This year, there is concern whether New Orleans has a sufficient number of monkeypox v*****es ahead of the festival. Shantel Hebert-Magee, regional medical director for the Louisiana Department of Health Region 1, claimed that Louisiana "has very limited allocation" of the v*****e.
Louisiana expects to receive 7,200 more doses of the v*****e ahead of Southern Decadence, but KALB indicated this won't be enough.
The LDH identified the first case of monkeypox in a Louisiana resident on July 7. There are presently 58 infected, 42 of whom are in southeast Louisiana.
Dr. Brobson Lutz, former health director for New Orleans, told Fox 8 that the “Orleans Parish area is the epicenter for the cases in the state.” He noted that Southern Decadence, "where you've got a large number of gay men coming together, who are likely to be in close personal contact," will be the "ideal setting to t***smit it," but may also be a good opportunity to "get people immunized."
Samuel Burgess, STD/HIV/hepatitis program director at LDH, said the v***s disproportionately affects gay people and bisexuals. Rosamund Lewis, the World Health Organization's monkeypox expert, revealed that 99% of those infected are men and 95% are gay men.
As TheBlaze reported on July 28, the director-general of the WHO just recently recommended that "men who have sex with men" should limit sexual partners in order to reduce the spread of the v***s.
Those infected with monkeypox may experience a painful rash that can look like pimples or blisters, respiratory problems, exhaustion, fever, swollen lymph nodes, and chills. Like C***D, monkeypox can be spread via respiratory droplets, through "direct contact with a rash or sores of someone who has the v***s," and through "contact with clothing, bedding and other items used by a person" with the v***s.
The pain is said to be "unimaginable."
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