ATLANTA — Georgia now has the 5th highest cases of monkeypox in the country with 158 as of July 21, 2022.
According to public health officials, the state is also third in the nation per capita, accounting for state population size.
Fulton County is seeing the majority of cases, with 106. It's why the county health department partnered with Atlanta Pride for a townhall Thursday night, to help get information out to people.
Some of the meeting was spent dispelling rumors or misinformation, including how the virus spreads, and what lesions may look like. While some viral images may show only people covered in hundreds of small bumps, cases in the U.S. are presenting somewhat differently. Some of the lesions may appear as a pimple, small pus bump or a small cut, as in the case of Antonius Minniefield.
Minnifield had mild symptoms when he went to the doctor and was tested for syphilis - which came back negative.
But a few days later, “I went into the restroom and I turned on the light and I just had marks, just marks everywhere.”
It took an ER trip and a 16-hour wait before he found out he had monkeypox. In Arkansas, it took Minniefield three days to get his official test results back.
“My symptoms and my rash spread for three days. It itched, it itched, my God, it itches, it hurts to the touch. I had chills, lesions in my hair," he said.
Minnifield shared his experience during the townhall.
Joshua O'Neal, Director of Sexual Health Promotion for the Fulton County Board of Health, laid out problems the county is having. Some of the issues relate to limited vaccine supply.
“We had 300 vaccines slots and within four minutes all 300 of those closed down," said O'Neal.
He added the county finds out on Wednesdays how many doses of the vaccine they'll get, and sends out a social media blast on Thursday. He added they are taking feedback from people, including how they get the vaccine appointment information out to people.
Limited vaccines are just some of the problems Fulton County and the state is dealing with.
There’s issues with contact tracing and getting accurate data. Public health officials are asking the CDC and Department of Public Health to create an online dashboard - similar to COVID dashboards.
“We have to know what we’re dealing with here, who's being affected," said Dr. Melanie Thompson. "We have to have vaccine data and demographics, so we can ensure equity."
On top of that, people with monkeypox and those exposed are asked to quarantine for three to four weeks
Dr. Thompson said, “We have to provide government subsidies to allow people to stay home and isolate and not go to work and to ensure people don’t lose their jobs because they have an illness.”
Georgia Equality is asking for more vaccines, and trying to get the state to use some of the COVID funds to increase outreach, which they say is pivotal to slowing down the outbreak.