Protect your children from adult content and block access to this site by using parental controls. PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. “We became aware of it and really wanted to act quickly to get the facts out to the community,” he said.You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography). Several groups, and the city, have been meeting over the last several weeks to co-ordinate their response to monkeypox, said Dane Griffiths, the director of the health alliance.
The city organized the bathhouse clinics with multiple community organizations that support LGBTQ residents, including the Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance.
“What we have to do is protect ourselves the best we can, the more proactive we are, the less it’s going to affect the community in the long run,” he said. Symptoms of the disease include swollen lymph nodes and flu-like symptoms, followed by a rash all over the body that presents as raised poxes, according to PHAC.Īt Steamworks, one employee who received his vaccine at the Sunday clinic told the Star that since he is often touching linens, money and keys he thought it would be important to get vaccinated.įollowing decades of stigma around HIV and AIDS, he said the community is worried about being targeted again in the monkeypox outbreak. However, during this current outbreak, gay and bisexual men have been impacted. Monkeypox is spread through contact with bodily fluids, including fluids from monkeypox lesions, contaminated clothing or bedding and respiratory droplets from “prolonged face-to-face contact,” according to the public health statement.Īnyone can spread monkeypox, regardless of their sexual orientation, public health emphasized. There are 112 cases of the virus nationally as of Friday, with 98 of those cases originating in Quebec, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. There are 11 confirmed cases of monkeypox in Toronto as of Friday, and another 21 cases under investigation, officials confirmed. “It can have a huge impact in just being able to disseminating the information people need to be hearing,” he said. “Bathhouses are a high opportunity setting, because this is where a lot of the guys who need to be connected with these resources are,” said Lamb. With the city launching the bathhouse clinics, advocacy groups are hoping that public health interventions within the community coupled with informing the community at upcoming events, like Pride, will help keep people safe. However, it needs to be made clear that monkeypox is not a virus that is associated with gay men, it’s simply affecting this population right now, said Lamb. Gay men’s sex lives have been historically scrutinized and stigmatized. Offering a vaccine to combat monkeypox in bathhouses is a great way to connect resources with the community, and help them be more informed in a safe environment, said Lamb.
The first clinics were offered exclusively to these employees in order to target high-risk communities, public health said in an online statement Saturday. The illness is within the same family as smallpox therefore smallpox vaccines are being used to combat monkeypox as it’s been shown to be effective. Steamworks is one of several bathhouses where, on Sunday, the city launched smallpox vaccination clinics to protect workers from monkeypox. “We don’t want people to be feeling afraid or anxious, we just want them to feel informed and able to connect with resources,” said Lamb. But the anxieties voiced are about more than the virus - it’s about the stigma and hate that could be directed toward the LGBTQ community, gay and bisexual men in particular, he said.
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His clients want to know how to protect themselves and others. As a union steward of Steamworks Baths, a bathhouse in the Gay Village, Graeme Lamb has heard questions from patrons about the monkeypox virus.