Houston is the fourth most populous city in the nation and the only city among the top 5 that has not set up a pre-emptive Monkeypox vaccination program for MSMs (men that have sex with men, the most affected group) to prevent a further outbreak of Monkeypox infections. This virus is spreading quickly and causing debilitating effects like extreme pain, blisters, fever, body aches, and people have to quarantine for a month.  It is transmitted by close contact and also by saliva droplets. The only effective treatment, TPOXX or tecovirimat,  is extremely difficult to get as doctors are struggling now to minimize the damaging effects of this virus on their patients.

A new study also suggests that the virus might be mutating 12 times faster than expected, and could lead to 60,000 new cases per day in the U.K. alone by the end of 2022. Other models suggest that we could conceivably see 100,000 cases worldwide by August and 500,000 to 1 million cases by the end of September. On June 22, WHO declared Monkeypox a pandemic. Luckily and unlike HIV and COVID-19, there is a vaccine now that could prevent further spread.

Let's avoid the mistakes made at the start of the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics! We demand that our Mayor Sylvester Turner starts Monkeypox vaccination now!

Note:  Please join our Facebook group Monkeypox Activism.