A matter of when, not if: Monkeypox in Athens

Although Athens has no confirmed cases of monkeypox (MPV) yet, Ohio University is taking precautions to keep students and staff safe. 

Similar to how it dealt with COVID-19, Ohio U made tests available and put out an official statement on how the university plans to handle monkeypox and how students can stay safe.

“There’s been a number of epidemiologists and public health experts who’ve been concerned about the college population,” Dr. Gillian Ice, special assistant to the president for Public Health Operations, said. “So, in our conversations with the local health department, we felt like it's a matter of time before we have a case here locally, rather than an if.”

Besides the official statement from Ice and Chief Medical Affairs Officer and Executive Dean of Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine Kenneth Johnson, Ohio U provided a monkeypox overview with information on on-campus testing via Campus Care and area urgent cares and where to get vaccinations. According to the overview, “Vaccines are available at the Athens City County Health Department for the Athens community (740.592.4431, ask for Crystal Jones).”

Additionally, Dr. Joseph Gastaldo, practitioning infectious diseases physician at OhioHealth, explained monkeypox at length during a video call: “Monkeypox is an infection that's caused by a virus. The monkeypox virus was first identified in animals in the 1950s. And the first human infection took place in the 1970s. In the United States, we saw our first monkeypox in 2003. So in 2003, there was the importation of Gambian rats into the United States. And these Gambian rats had infection with monkeypox.”

Since May 2022, cases of monkeypox occured in places where the virus is not endemic. The first cases in the U.S. were reported in mid-May 2022. According to the CDC, there are 23,117 cases in the U.S., and 237 cases in the state of Ohio, as of September 15.

Ice points to decelerating cases in the US according to data from Our World in Data, which she traces back to rising concern and vaccination rates. 

“We just want to get in front of it and not be reactive, but rather be proactive. And make sure that we have the resources available for students, faculty or staff who might need them,” Ice said. That is why Ohio U put out the press release as well as the overview and is providing testing before the first confirmed cases occur in Athens.

In their statement, Ohio U also acknowledged the difficulty to deal with another virus spreading around the world. 

“Although it’s challenging to face yet another complex public health issue, this virus is much less transmissible than COVID and thus is less likely to cause the same level of disruption to campus activities,” the Ohio U release said. “There are no known cases in Athens County or the counties in which our regional campuses are located. This means the relative risk to our University community is currently low.”

Despite there being no reported cases in Athens so far, it is still important to raise awareness on the topic. Through education on how monkeypox is spread and how to protect oneself and others from it, the numbers and spread can be reduced. 

“I've heard from a few students and employees that some of the concern is out of misunderstanding how monkeypox spread,“ Ice said. That is why it is important to make people aware of the ways MPV spreads and how to protect oneself, Ice goes on.

At the same time, good information might be able to fight the evolving stigma around monkeypox. 

In the beginning, the media coverage mainly showed Black skin with monkeypox and the name itself plays into racial stereotypes, which added a racial component into the coverage of the virus. 

Currently, MPV mostly spreads in the LGBTQ community. Sensitive media coverage and education are important to prevent a false connection between sexuality and the diseases.

“In the state of Ohio, 97% of all cases are in men. And most of those men, that 99% of those men, identify as men who have sex with men,” Gastaldo said. “Now, I want to be careful when I say that monkey pox is not an LGBTQ infection. It's not a gay infection. It's not an African infectious disease. It is an infectious disease that can infect anybody. We have to be very careful and not having any stigmatization of anybody based on their sexual preferences. But we need to take specifically targeted messaging to that community.”

Ohio U put the press release together with the help of the LGBT Center. Ohio U and the LGBT Center are working on organizing events to inform more students about monkeypox and other diseases to fight stigma, as it happened with HIV/AIDS.

“As the virus progresses, we may see homophobic stigma develop around monkeypox, which puts everyone's health at risk and can have long-lasting, negative consequences for the LGBTQ community; it is important for the OHIO community to understand the facts about monkeypox and interrupt stigma,” Ohio U said in the release.

Micah McCarey, the director of the LGBT Center, shared this sentiment during a phone call: “We are recognizing that this is an unfolding public health crisis, and there will be a need to have regular means of providing community updates. We're working on interactive formats now and hope to have a panel of staff members from medical and diversity and inclusion backgrounds, to be able to take questions and give answers to community members’ concerns. Also, we want to be able to share updates about availability of vaccines, where people can go to get them who's eligible.”

McCarey campaigns for treating the topic in a sensitive, non-discriminatory way, and encouraged the LGBT-community to take care of their health in general. 

“I think the message of taking care of our holistic health is super important to members of the LGBTQ+ community, because it seems like we're always finding disproportionate adverse effects of depression and anxiety and in some cases, even viruses,” McCarey said. “So, keeping our mental health or physical health or sexual health at the forefront of our thinking is really important.”

Gastaldo explained the differences in the two viruses plaguing us today. Even though MPV is spreading worldwide, he said that people should still mainly focus on COVID-19 rather than MPV. 

“Monkeypox is not spreading from going to the grocery store or shaking somebody's hand or having casual contact with somebody,” Gastaldo said. “If that was the case and monkeypox spread like COVID, half of New York City would have monkeypox. We're not seeing that.”