As the world continues to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, alarms have started to be raised concerning another deadly disease — cases of monkeypox have been identified in several countries in Europe and North America, as well as in Australia.

From the same family as smallpox, monkeypox is endemic to Central and West Africa, but alarm is being raised as it spreads to countries where the populations have little exposure and thus no built-up immunity to the disease.

Images from Africa are being used to report on non-African outbreaks.

Monkeypox, which causes fevers, aches, and distinctive rashes, can be deadly, especially in regions such as Europe and North America, where citizens have little resistance against the disease. Older people in these regions who have had past smallpox vaccinations may have partial immunity to the disease, The New York Times reports, but younger people without such vaccination history are at greater risk. Although the initial European infection is believed to be traced to a traveler from Nigeria to the U.K., according to the UK Health Security Agency, the other Western cases do not have an obvious connection to Africa. Nevertheless, images of African bodies with rashes have dominated Western coverage of the outbreak.

“The outbreak is in Europe not in Africa,” noted Twitter uses Hashi, MD, “but the racist western media couldn’t help themselves but to use African images to denote ‘Monkey pox’.”

Homophobic rumors about the outbreaks have proliferated.

In addition to the racial imagery surrounding the current monkeypox outbreak, LGBTQ communities have also been the subject of speculation surrounding the current outbreak. Because four of the initial people to test positive for monkeypox in the U.K. were self-identified men who have sex with men (MSM), rumors and half-truths have spread online, blaming the outbreak on sexual activity between men. The United Nations has warned that current coverage and discourse surrounding the outbreak could “reinforce homophobic and racist stereotypes and exacerbate stigma” against Black and/or LGBTQ individuals, Al Jazeera reports.

There is a long trend of scapegoating in response to disease.

Blaming minority and marginalized communities for disease outbreaks is nothing new. Gay men and people from Africa have been stigmatized in regard to HIV/AIDS since the 1980s. After it became known that the coronavirus that led to the current COVID-19 pandemic likely crossed over to humans in China, Western figures such as former President Donald Trump blamed China and Asians, or people of Asian descent more generally, for the pandemic, and used racist labels such as the “Chinese virus.” Many believe this racist demonization is responsible for the alarming rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States, including deadly attacks and at least one mass shooting. Similarly, the Omicron variant of the virus was labeled the “South Africa variant” after scientists identified it in that country, and travel bans were placed against southern Africa despite the variants’ prevalence in Western nations.

Although Western media continues its trend of problematic reporting, non-Western media has not been compelled to follow its lead. Kenyan news reports, for example, have used images of white people to illustrate the story of the monkeypox outbreak. “Good for Kenya TV,” British Nigerian author and activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu posted on Twitter. “Show White people with #monkeypox in response to targeted racist tactic of Western media only depicting Africans with monkey pox.”

As Western media continue to paint problematic narratives concerning diseases like monkeypox, such counternarratives will continue to be important.

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