Monkeypox vaccine clinic now open in Halifax for people at high risk of exposure

The Halifax Sexual Health Centre has opened a monkeypox clinic to provide a pre-exposure vaccine for people at highest risk of contracting the virus.

The free clinic — the first of its kind in the province — began Thursday. People can book appointments until Oct. 6.

The province said it is working on setting up more vaccination locations elsewhere in the province. 

Abbey Ferguson, executive director of the Halifax centre, said there was a pent-up demand for the vaccine with about 430 appointments booked by 3:30 p.m. on launch day. 

Ferguson told CBC Radio's Mainstreet NS guest host Carolyn Ray that while she was too busy organizing the clinic to promote it, community partners got the message out. 

This is a condensed version of their conversation that has been edited for clarity and length.

Who is eligible to book an appointment for the monkeypox vaccine right now?

Right now you can get a vaccine if you have not gotten a dose from somewhere else. So if you didn't go to Toronto or Montreal to get one. You have to identify either as a cis or trans queer man, a two-spirit person or a non-binary person who has sexual contact with queer men, two-spirit folks or non-binary people. 

[There are] a couple of caveats to that. You have to have had two or more sexual partners in the past three months or you're planning to have; have a diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection in the past three months; if you've attended, worked or volunteered at a venue for sexual contact — like a bath house or a sex club in the past three months — or you're planning to go in the future; if you've had any anonymous sex in the past three months, or you plan to, or if you engage in sex work both as a worker or a client, or you're planning to. If you are a sexual contact of anyone who meets those criteria, you are also eligible.

Is this just one shot right now or is it a two-part vaccine?

Right now we're just doing a one shot.

Why is it important to have this access in Nova Scotia?

We don't have any community transmission at this time, which is really excellent news and kind of unexpected. This is the best time to offer a pre-exposure prophylaxis. The whole idea is that you're [preventing it], therefore you don't have to do treatment later. This is a perfect time to get some prevention in and hopefully secure that lack of community transmission in Nova Scotia.

There has been concern folks in the LGBTQ+ community are being stigmatized when it comes to monkey pox. How will you ensure that doesn't happen?

The specific designation to the LGBTQ community for this vaccine is because that is following the epidemiology. We are seeing that demographic in infection rates in Canada. Now just like with sexually transmitted infections in general, which we talk about all the time, we know that it doesn't work that way. Folks can have sex with lots of different people and the actual virus doesn't care about their identity in that way. We are just targeting demographics at this time.

As well, the reason that the vaccine is being dealt with at our clinic, or the justification, is that we're a culturally competent clinic. We have strong ties and employees that identify as part of that community. We're able to use that language and our knowledge around how to discuss stigma.  And any immunizer that we have coming in from the [Nova Scotia Health Authority] has been given a whole host of resources about our values and how we talk about stigma here at the clinic.

How much supply of the monkeypox vaccine do you have?

I've been told is that we can get pretty much what we think we would need. For now that means that we have six immunizers working, on average, for three evenings a week and two full days on the weekend and we can get all of those doses, no problem. 

What did it take to get this clinic up and running in just a few weeks, did you have to hire more staff?

We do not have to hire more staff. For the actual immunizers, the majority will be our staff. But public health has offered us some nurses to help us out and make sure that we're using all of the rooms to the best of our ability to increase capacity. Otherwise, it's just been my entire life for the past three weeks.

What do people need to know about how to book an appointment or if they want to read that criteria since the list is rather long?

You can go to novascotia.ca/monkeypox  that has a ton of information as well as a link at the bottom to 'book now.'  The actual booking happens through CANImmunize, which is going to look really familiar to anyone who booked their own COVID-19 vaccine. [It] is going to ask you very similar questions like name and your phone number, your e-mail, your health card number. You can book online yourself, but if you don't have a health card or you have an out-of-province health card, you can call us directly at the Halifax Sexual Health Centre and we can book you in.

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