Where can you get the monkeypox vaccine in the UK?
There have now been over 2,200 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the UK, with the vast majority of them centred in England, specifically London.
The virus can affect anyone, with the first cases confirmed in children in the US last week.
However, it is currently mainly spreading to gay and bisexual men, with people who have multiple sexual partners most at risk.
The NHS has started a vaccine rollout to people who could be most likely to get the disease.
They are gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men (GBMSM), along with the frontline staff at greatest risk of exposure and those who have been in close contact with a confirmed case
There are some walk-in clinics around the country, however these are mainly centred in London, where most of the cases have so far been found.
If you are looking to find out how you can get a monkeypox vaccine, unfortunately the advice is a little patchy for those outside of the capital.
In many areas, the advice is to wait until you are contacted to be given a vaccine.
This may be fine for those who are known to their local sexual health clinic, with clinicians able to recognise they are at risk.
But for those who may, for example, be new to the area, or haven’t been before, or who have only recently become sexually active, they may not be on the radar of services.
In London there have been long queues outside Guy’s Hospital for walk-in clinics.
There have been reports of some people travelling cross-country to get the vaccine, as they were concerned and wanted to get it as soon as possible.
Others said they were disappointed at not being able to access it easily elsewhere.
Author William Hussey tweeted: ‘It appears there are no walk-in centres in Lincolnshire. I have to wait for a phone appointment with a consultant a week Weds to even begin the process.
‘Again, rural area of the UK are not like London, Manchester etc for LGBTQ+ people. We are routinely failed. It’s a point I regularly try to make to my urban gay friends but one I am not sure is ever fully appreciated. Our lives are not like yours.’
Last week, it was announced that the vaccine rollout in London is being ‘scaled up’ as this is currently where most cases are spreading.
There are more than 18 clinics offering vaccinations in the capital including Dean Street sexual health clinic in Soho, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Guy’s Hospital in Southwark, Mortimer Market Centre in Camden and Barking Hospital Outpatient Centre East.
Elsewhere in the UK, clinics in Brighton are offering the vaccine with a walk-in available on Saturdays.
The Whittall Street Clinic in Birmingham is also offering the vaccine, and there are seven in the Manchester area.
However, these are contacting people directly and not offering walk-ins.
The vaccine used in the UK is the smallpox (MVA) vaccination. It was not developed for use in monkeypox specifically, but has a protective effect.
It is designed to be given as two doses, however for now most people are only being given a single dose.
So far, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have not been as badly hit by the outbreak and consequently are not offering the vaccine as frequently.
There have been 30 cases in Wales so far, and 26 in Scotland, with neither country yet offering walk-in clinics.
Public Health Scotland said they would be setting out details of their vaccine rollout ‘in due course’.
Meanwhile, a Welsh Government spokesperson said: ‘Areas with outbreaks are being prioritised in the distribution of UK-wide supplies of the monkeypox vaccine.
‘Anyone eligible for a pre-exposure vaccination in Wales will be contacted directly by their health board. People concerned about symptoms should contact NHS 111 or a sexual health service.’
The Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland said the current process is that those who are eligible for vaccination against monkeypox will be offered the vaccine via the sexual health clinic through their local Health and Social Care Trust.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.