US, UK sexual health clinics lacking monkeypox care after years of oversight, inadequate funding

Sexual health clinics, which also offer confidential walk-in diagnosis and treatment for monkeypox, are often under-resourced, health experts say

The outbreak has reached 63 countries, according to the WHO, with the highest number of cases in Spain

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People wait in line to receive the Monkeypox vaccine before the opening of a new mass vaccination site at the Bushwick Education Campus in New York on July 17. File photo: AFP

Published: 7:22pm, 18 Jul 2022

Sexual health clinics on the frontline of the monkeypox response are already financially stretched, leaving the United States and Britain ill-equipped to tackle the first major global health test since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Infectious disease experts say sexual health clinics – which offer confidential walk-in diagnosis and treatment – are best placed to identify and treat cases of monkeypox, which is largely affecting men who have sex with men.

Yet such programmes are doing so largely without additional funding despite years of financial neglect. There is little data on funding for sexual health services globally, but experts agree that the sector is under-resourced.

Medical supplies are arranged on the tables before the opening of a Monkeypox mass vaccination site at the Bushwick Educational Campus. File photo: AFP

That has impeded the monkeypox response and diverted scarce resources needed to curb rising rates of other sexually transmitted diseases (STD), sexual health experts in the UK and the US said.

This lack of resources could result in further spread of monkeypox, they said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the outbreak has reached 63 countries.

“This is a gap and a weakness in our public health system that monkeypox has exposed,” Dr Meg Doherty, director of the WHO’s Global HIV, Hepatitis and STIs Programmes, said in an email.

“Even among high income countries, funding for sexual health globally is decreasing or remains unfunded,” she said.