LAS VEGAS — The Southern Nevada Health District has officially expanded eligibility for its limited supply of monkeypox vaccines to “all sex workers of any gender identity and sexual orientation.”
The news was flagged this morning via Twitter by advocacy group SWAID Vegas Mutual Aid Fund.
“The Health Department has made an explicit expansion to the Monkeypox vaccine eligibility to include all sex workers of any gender and orientation,” SWAID tweeted. “They recommend making an appointment, as walk-ins are limited supply.”
“While you’re there, anyone can go to the pharmacy in the main building and ask for fentanyl test strips, which they should give without asking for any information,” SWAID also tweeted. “You can also always email us at swaidvegas@protonmail.com for test strips, condoms, Plan B, or clean needles!”
The Southern Nevada Health District website added the wording “all sex workers of any gender identity and sexual orientation” to the eligibility page and reminded site visitors, “If you develop a new rash that looks like monkeypox, talk to your health care provider, even if you don’t think you had close contact with someone with monkeypox.”
The Southern Nevada Community Health Center at 280 S. Decatur Blvd. in Las Vegas currently has a limited supply of monkeypox vaccine for people who are eligible.
PASS Offering Monkeypox Resources for Adult Performers
PASS Executive Director Ian O’Brien told XBIZ today that the performer health advocacy group "is thrilled that Southern Nevada Health District has joined with other major cities in recent weeks in expanding their MPX vaccine eligibility criteria to explicitly include sex workers.
"We hope more jurisdictions continue to follow suit," he added. "PASS encourages all performers who are able to get vaccinated to do so."
Earlier this month, O’Brien spoke to XBIZ about awareness, prevention and the status of the infectious disease outbreak, and emphasized that one of the issues the adult performer community needs to be aware of is that “we cannot currently test for monkeypox the same way we do for other STIs.”
This complicates dealing with monkeypox using tracing protocols that the industry has developed for regular STI testing and the PASS system.
O’Brien stressed that PASS’ harm reduction policy makes it a priority “to get folks who we believe to be at risk as much as access as we can.”
O’Brien said he believes PASS “can achieve the greatest impact by directing our focus on increasing vaccine access and spreading awareness around the new production guidelines we have released in response.”
For more information on monkeypox vaccine access for adult industry members, click here.
For the new production guidelines recommended by PASS regarding monkeypox awareness and prevention, click here.
For PASS’ general monkeypox info page, click here.
For more on the vaccine, click here.
For PASS infectious disease memos, including monkeypox tracking, click here.
To learn more on how to help PASS with advocacy for sex worker access to the monkeypox vaccine, click here.
For more up-to-date information, follow PASS on Twitter.