Los Angeles monkeypox cases spiked from two 'very big parties'

Los Angeles County health officials confirmed on local transmission of monkeypox among, meaning cases that have no history of international or out-of-state travel.

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the Board of Supervisors there were now about 30 presumptive or confirmed monkeypox cases in the county as of Thursday.

“There’s been some what we call ‘community transmission.’ That is, it’s not from travelers or people who went elsewhere and contracted monkeypox somewhere else,” Ferrer said at this week’s board meeting on Friday.

“It’s actually they got monkeypox here in L.A. County, because it was transmitted from someone else here in L.A. County who had monkeypox.”

The smallpox strain is endemic in animals but rarely transmitted from human to human, as it requires prolonged physical contact with the infected, their clothing or bed linens.

Ferrer told the meeting that the majority of people who had been diagnosed with monkeypox in the country were “folks who attended very big parties,” and that “a lot of very specific outreach” had been offered to attendees seeing information or treatment.

A Public Health press release last week mentioned that some of the recent cases have been among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men who attended large events. There have been many celebrations in the LGBT community recently because June is Pride Month.

European health experts have found a similar connection. Officials in the U.K., which has the biggest monkeypox outbreak outside Africa, noted the disease “defined sexual networks of gay, bisexual, or men who have sex with men.”

New York City began offering vaccines for monkeypox to men who have sex with men or have had multiple sexual partners, and other vulnerable groups, but quickly ran out of shots.

The U.S. passed 200 confirmed cases on Saturday, 51 of which are in California, according to CDC data.

American health officials have careful not to link the LGBT community and monkeypox to avoid a repeat of the anti-gay discrimination that ran rampant during the 1980s AIDS epidemic.

“Unfortunately, the virus hit the social network of gay men first, but it will not stay confined to gay men if it spreads,” director of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention Demetre Daskalakis told The Advocate last month.

“Biology doesn’t care about anyone’s sexuality. Anyone can get monkeypox,” he added.