In Southern Nevada, minorities are hit hardest by monkeypox cases
Latino residents make up 31% of the 166 confirmed monkeypox cases in Southern Nevada, followed by Blacks at 25%, and white residents at 23%, the Southern Nevada Health District reported this week.
The local data basically adheres to national figures. Black men account for 33% of the 18,989 cases in the United States and Latino men 32%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday.
“It is too early to speculate about any trends,” said Jennifer Sizemore, a spokesperson with the Southern Nevada Health District. “We are continuing to receive and analyze data, and we will tailor our response based on available information to ensure the people who are most impacted are receiving needed resources.”
The virus has hit California (3,600 cases) and New York (3,300 cases) the hardest, according to the CDC.
The virus has most mainly affected men who have sex with men, but is also infecting those of other sexual orientation.
Mona Lisa Paulo, director of wellness clinic and HIV services at The Center, a Las Vegas agency that serves the LGBTQ community, said that it is “seeing all sorts of people’’ walking into its clinic to get monkeypox vaccines since it started offering them Aug. 16.
“It’s everybody that’s getting the vaccine here, and so there’s no differentiation between people that are necessarily coming in here to get the vaccine,” Paulo said. “We’ve had women, we’ve even had some children under the age of 18 … a whole wide range: Black, white, Hispanic, Asian.”
The Center has been working with the health district to distribute the vaccine, which is still limited to mainly men who have sex with men or those that have been