Since July 11, some health care providers and people who had unprotected high-risk contact with an infected person can be vaccinated against monkey pox. But in contact tracing, the identification of the contacts would be very difficult. The number of people who present themselves in time after an unprotected high-risk contact remains limited, it sounds. Vaccination preferably takes place within four days of exposure.
The Risk Management Group, the health ministers of the federal and federal states, therefore decided on the advice of the Risk Assessment Group, the committee of experts that analyzes threats to public health, to relax the strict conditions. In this way, more risk persons can be vaccinated, even before they are exposed to the virus.
In concrete terms, male and transgender sex workers can ask for a vaccine from next week. The same goes for men who have sex with men who are HIV+ or receive PrEP, a treatment to prevent HIV, and who had at least two STDs in the past year. People with immune disorders and a high risk of infection, and laboratory personnel handling virus cultures, can also be vaccinated from next week.
Delivery vaccines
The FPS Public Health estimates their number at about two thousand people. They are now getting their first dose and a second in the fall. Then the 30,000 vaccine doses ordered by the Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke will be delivered. The intention is to expand the target group again at that time.
Currently, Belgium has a stock of 3,040 doses of the Jynneos vaccine, the last generation smallpox vaccine. On July 25, the health institute Sciensano had reported 393 confirmed cases of monkeypox virus in Belgium. It was almost exclusively about men who have sex with other men and usually have multiple sexual partners. “For the wider general population, the risk is estimated to be very low based on current scientific information,” it said.
The vaccines are distributed among the reference centers, of which there are currently nine in our country. The FPS Public Health says it will communicate in the short term where someone who thinks they qualify can get more information. Sex workers will also work through a number of organizations that know that group best and can easily reach them.