The official also specified that of the fifty infected, 49 are men with an average age of 38 years and a gay, bisexual profile who has relationships with other men.
The geographic area of this Caribbean island with the largest number of cases is the metropolitan area of San Juan, which involves several municipalities.
Precisely because of this, the Puerto Rico Ministry of Health sought the collaboration of organizations that serve the sector to collaborate in the inoculation that was carried out this Sunday in a dependency of the Medical Center, in Río Piedras, where it was possible to vaccinate about 300 men.
Mass immunization, explained the health official, is currently focused on what is considered the population at greatest risk of contracting the virus, particularly homosexual or bisexual men, based on the parameters of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Faced with this reality, to avoid stigmatizing potential patients, the Puerto Rican public health agency sought the collaboration of organizations such as Puerto Rico for All in order to clear the way and get members of the LGBTQ+ community vaccinated.
This allowed some 292 people to be inoculated this Sunday against monkeypox, as it is also known, although the WHO is looking for another option to avoid, as has already happened, the killing of primates.
Marzán indicated that since the Epidemiological Surveillance System for Monkeypox was established, they have received 193 alerts, of which 50 respond to confirmed cases, 66 suspects, 69 people under investigation and eight contacts due to travel abroad, particularly to the United States and Spain.
98 percent of the cases correspond to men, of which 80 percent had sexual activity in the last 21 days.
The age group with the highest incidence is between 30 and 39 years with 18 cases.
“We have been in the vaccination process for several weeks, specifically through a network of providers (but) we realized that it might take longer to make appointments, so we are beginning to evaluate this new strategy with the intention of winning access to vaccination,” Marzán clarified about the change in strategy.
As part of the changes, collaboration was established with organizations that serve the LGBTQI+ population with the intention of reaching “the public health goal because we cannot do it alone,” the official said.
ef/rgh/nrm
