WASHINGTON — With the Navajo Nation confirming its first case of monkeypox this week — and cases among Natives having previously been reported in D.C. and California — the Indian Health Service (IHS) is continuing to step up its public health efforts, according to agency officials.
Earlier on in the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S., some major Native influencers and health advocates were critical of and questioning the IHS response:
IHS has since pushed back against the notion that it doesn’t have a plan, although it is noteworthy that a permanent IHS director has still not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate to oversee this ongoing health situation, as well as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and Indian health funding and other policy challenges facing the agency:
Native health advocates are noticing improvements:
The National Indian Health Board on August 26 is holding an online meeting about monkeypox in Indian Country:
How is monkeypox impacting your Indigenous community? Email us.
I will likely get nasty replies to this but this needs to be said.
Monkeypox is only spread by a small percentage of the men who have sexual relations with other men; men who can’t control their urges because they lack compulsion control. If these men would just control the number of times they try to sink their “golf club” into the next golf course hole we would not have to have IHS spend any funds on this reckless human behavior. Monkeypox is not a threat to children unless they are being sexually abused by an infected
man.
It is time for the LBG_ _, whatever, communities to stop the spread of Monkeypox by simple education means not expensive vaccines.