Although monkeypox mainly causes skin lesions and fever, according to several patients and doctors, people with the disease suffer from the psychological repercussions of the disease.

“You don’t come out unscathed from an illness that has hurt you so much, that you’ve been locked up for three weeks and moreover discriminated against,” says Corentin Hennebert, 27, one of the “first cases.” in France. Since her recovery, other patients have told her about the “psychological cost” of the illness.

“There is a psychological distress associated with several things,” explains Nathan Peiffer-Smadja, an infectious specialist at Bichat hospital in Paris and coordinating a clinical study on infected patients.

On the one hand, “pain” and possible “sequelae, especially aesthetics”, on the other hand, the fact of suffering from “a disease that people have never heard of” that emerged two years after the covid epidemic-19, and this requires three weeks of isolation.

He explains that a small number of patients develop internal injuries, particularly coloproctological (affecting the colon, rectum, and anus), sometimes requiring hospitalization.

This was Hennebert’s situation: “I had the impression that razors were always sticking to me. I can’t find any other comparison, it was so strong,” he recalls.

Before being treated with tramadol, a potent opioid pain reliever, she had “lost 7 pounds in three days” because she stopped eating. “I just thought of the pain,” she says.

32-year-old Frenchman Sébastien Tuller did not have these pains, but was very worried about the appearance of the injuries. “It was really ugly and I didn’t know what to do. It made me very sad to see (pustules) on my face.

HIV trauma

“When a disease is visible, it’s scary because it can potentially be stigmatized,” thinks Michel Ohayon, director of 190, a sexual health center in Paris, comparing it to “Kaposi’s sarcoma,” a “symptom of AIDS.”

A parallel that impresses people usually does.

According to Nicolas Derche, national director of health services for the French SOS group, which brings together 650 social and medico-social structures, monkeypox “reignites HIV traumas”, although the two diseases have “no relation” in terms of severity.

“In HIV-positive people, this reactivates very drastic things like “fear of diagnosis” or “reviving a strong stigma,” explains Vincent Leclercq, an activist with the NGO Aides in the fight against AIDS.

As with HIV, monkeypox is now circulating in the MSM (men who have sex with men) community, resulting in increased discrimination.

“There is widespread homophobia and it has a real impact on mental health,” explains Sébastien Tuller, LGBTIQ+ activist and lawyer.

“Many don’t say they have ‘monkey pox,’ or that they got it for fear of being stigmatized,” she says.

“Especially young people who have not yet ‘revealed’ in their families, or people who fear their sexual orientation will transcend at work due to the required three weeks of isolation.