“We get calls that you are worried about facing prejudice from the public, that you can’t be open about your sexuality and how you should be treated by health care,” says association president Amanda Netscher.
Other organizations in Europe have warned that authorities are repeating the same mistakes as in the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, where the focus on gay men led to social isolation and mental illness, says Netscher.
— We still don’t have a vaccine against HIV, but we do against this virus, so we can do much more and faster to both minimize the risk of the spread of infection but also to minimize the risks of stigma and the prejudices that can come from this.
According to Netscher, one measure that should be taken is, among other things, to change the name of the virus.
— The name monkeypox is unfortunate for several reasons, not least because there is a connection to Africa and men who have sex with men. That merger alone will be crazy, she says.