The current mpox outbreak in Africa has left members of the gay community wondering how badly if it will affect them. The virus was first declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in July 2022, after cases increased in Europe and the Americas. According to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), gay and bisexual men were disproportionately affected, leading people to worry that what was then called monkeypox would be seen as a “gay disease”. The virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark, in monkeys kept for research, WHO reported. The first human case is believed to have been that of a nine-month-old boy in 1970, in what was then known as the Congo or Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.