“I was screaming in pain, left without medicine and assistance”

“I screamed in pain: my two weeks of hell with the monkeypox»: Is the title of the testimony of a 39-year-old man, a Swede living in New Yorkinfected with monkeypox, which describes both the pain caused by the symptoms and the fear of not making it and the lack of responses from the health system, despite the fact that two and a half months have now passed since the beginning of this epidemic.

Monkeypox, the ordeal of an infected person without medicine and assistance

Is called Sebastian Kohn and he tells The Guardian very concerned: “If someone like me, who has worked extensively in the field of sexual health, has had such a difficult time navigating the care system, I can’t imagine how other people could do it. I know many people who just sit at home in agonizing pain because they don’t get the support they need. I am rather concerned that we are close to the point that this will be another endemic disease, especially among gay men, if we have not already passed that point. ‘

What is monkeypox

Good to know: for the virus Monkeypoxor monkeypox, theWorld Health Organization declared the epidemic a “global health emergency”. Since the beginning of May, when the first cases of Monkeypox have been found outside African countries (where it is endemic), the disease has affected nearly 17,000 people in 74 countries. Europe has 10..604 according to the latest joint bulletin of European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (Ecdc) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe. 95 percent of cases have men as patients and there is a strong spread in the gay community (but not only). According to Gianni Rezza, Director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health, in Italy the cases detected are 407, “There is maximum attention, not alarmism.” And the professor Matteo Bassetti, an infectious disease specialist at the San Martino Hospital in Genoa, observes: «This disease does not affect the entire population, but a very limited group: young, purely male, who are infected through homo / bisexual and more rarely heterosexual relationships. A vaccination campaign should be addressed very quickly to these people, monkeypox is a far from simple disease ». This is the picture, now we return to the dramatic testimony of Sebastian Kohn, published by The Guardian.

‘I literally screamed out loud in pain’: my two weeks of monkeypox hell https://t.co/aP1p3igug7

— The Guardian (@guardian) July 24, 2022

The celebrations of the New York Pride

Some excerpts, even raw but which are right to report to convince people to pay attention: “I have monkeypox and it was a total nightmare – says Kohn – When the New York Pride celebrations began on June 24, I was aware that monkeypox was an emerging problem, especially for gay men, but I also felt that the number of cases in the city was relatively small. What I didn’t understand was how utterly depressing the test ability was: New York only had the ability to process ten tests a day. I had sex with several guys over the weekend. Then a week later, on July 1st, I started feeling very fatigued. I had a high fever with chills and muscle aches, and my lymph nodes were so swollen that they protruded two inches from my throat. ‘ Kohn tested negative for Covid, but in a city like New York, despite he has health insurance, it proved to be a feat both to get a test on Monkeypox and the specific drug, an antiviral called Tpoxx.

Monkey pox: here are the symptoms

Kohn continues after describing the failure of the healthcare system’s response: «After I got home, the rash started to spread and I started to feel anxious. I have developed injuries literally everywhere; they started to look like mosquito bites before developing into pimply blisters that would eventually burst, then scabs formed before leaving a scar. I had them on my skull, face, arms, legs, feet, hands, torso, back and five only on my right elbow. At the peak, I had over 50 injuries, a fever of 39.5 and severe pain, which resulted in a panic attack. Ironically, the only place I had no injuries was my penis. ‘ Despite the increasingly painful and unbearable symptoms, returning to the emergency room proved useless. Until Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center finally managed to get him Tpoxx and gradually, thanks to this antiviral, the situation improved even though Kohn is still stuck in isolation.