A report by news agency Bloomberg revealed that Black and Hispanic Americans did not have equal access to the monkeypox vaccine when the vaccination program was rolled out. The report revealed that the maximum number of doses have reached White men in many American cities.
The US declared the monkeypox a public health emergency earlier this month. The nation is also now the epicentre of the global outbreak and most cases were among men who recently had sex with other men.
The US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) data shows that most cases are among people of colour. Cases with known race and ethnicity information reveals that 25% of the cases were reported amongst Black Americans and 32% of the cases were reported amongst Hispanics.
The report said, in Chicago, 55% of the vaccines were given to White people. 63.5% of the vaccines have gone to people who identify as White in Washington DC. In the Atlanta metro area where many Black men are affected by monkeypox, 54% of the vaccine doses went to White people.
The data suggests that the US healthcare system is struggling to reach out to vulnerable populations, as it did when Covid-19 pandemic struck.
The report also revealed that neighbourhoods which were not predominantly White did not get access to monkeypox vaccine in the initial stages.
Even though it reached neighbourhoods which also house LGBTQIA+ residents, those areas were predominantly White. In both cities, Washington and New York City, vaccine shots reached caregivers and centres which were located in the affluent areas of the city.
Stephen Thomas, the director of the Centre for Health Equity at University of Maryland’s School of Public Health told Bloomberg that improper framing of who is affected by monkeypox also affects the vaccine distribution.
He said if monkeypox is seen as a disease that only affects LGBTQIA+ individuals, there is a risk that those who don’t identify as LGBTQIA+ will not be a part of the measures taken by the healthcare system. He said the US made a similar mistake during the AIDS epidemic decades ago.
However, steps are being taken by some organisations to address the vaccine inequality. Howard Brown Health, an LGBTQ organisation in Chicago opened two sites in the city’s predominantly Black neighbourhood. Washington DC also set up a site in one of the poorest, predominantly Black neighbourhoods in the city.
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