‘People are freaking out, seeing young men with lesions all over their faces’: the anxious wait for monkeypox vaccines

With supplies running low, many gay and bisexual men are struggling to get appointments at sexual health centres - and for some, the handling of the outbreak has alarming echoes of the HIV/Aids epidemic

In a waiting room at the Mortimer Market Centre, a sexual health clinic in central London, a slow but steady stream of men who have sex with men (MSM) are arriving to receive their first monkeypox vaccination. It is a sweltering afternoon, and all available slots have been filled, as they have ever since vaccines started to be delivered here in early July.

Few know much about the monkeypox virus itself, or how the vaccine works. But everyone at the clinic is acutely aware of how this unpleasant and potentially extremely painful disease has been sweeping through gay and bisexual men: according to the World Health Organization (WHO), they account for 98% of this outbreak's cases. The 2,500 men who have so far passed through these doors now have some protection, although at what level - and for how long - remains uncertain. In very rare cases the disease can be fatal.