Registration opened today for Friday appointments to receive the monkeypox vaccination at the Long Beach LGBTQ Center. Photo: Q Voice News.
Registration opened today for Friday appointments to receive a monkeypox vaccination at the Long Beach LGBTQ Center.
Registration is required to attend and receive a monkeypox vaccination.
Appointments will be available from 4 to 8 p.m.
Eligibility is open to anyone who meets Long Beach Health Department guidelines:
- People who were exposed to someone with confirmed monkeypox and do not have symptoms.
- People who attended an event/venue where there was high risk of exposure to someone with confirmed monkeypox.
- Gay or bisexual men and transgender persons who are taking PrEP.
- Gay or bisexual men and transgender people who attended saunas, bathhouses, sex clubs, circuit parties, or sex parties where they had anonymous sex or sex with multiple partners.
- Gay or bisexual men and transgender people with a diagnosis of gonorrhea or early syphilis within the past 12 months.
- Gay or bisexual men and transgender people 18 years of age and older who had multiple or anonymous sex partners in the last 14 days including engaging in survival and/or transactional sex (e.g., sex in exchange for shelter, food and other goods and needs).
- Residents who are immunocompromised, including those with advanced or uncontrolled HIV, who may be at high risk for severe disease.
To make a monkeypox vaccination appointment at the center, call 562-434-4455 ext. 500 to speak to someone in health services. Leave a message if nobody answers.
Gay resident have been frustrated at the health department’s education and prevention response to the monkeypox outbreak that is disproportionately impacting them.
The health department announced the city’s first presumptive case of monkeypox July 16. It also was the first time the city mentioned gay men being disproportionately impacted by monkeypox, but that information was buried near the end of the press release.
The generic messaging, with little to no mentioning of the gay community, treats them like they are invisible.
“You didn’t have anything to say until after a case was identified in Long Beach?,” said Mike Atchue, 36, of Long Beach, who identifies as gay. “It seems like they don’t care. It’s very disappointing.”
Long Beach Health Officer Dr. Anissa Davis disagrees and said “everyone is going to have an opinion and an experience about how the response was to them.”
“The rapidity of the response is in the eye of the beholder,” she said.
