In May 2022, the WHO reports the first cases of Mpox in Europe. So far, the disease has mainly occurred in Central Africa. It quickly becomes clear that 99% of those infected are men who have sex with men. While the gay community celebrates pride month and hundreds of thousands demonstrate for their rights at Christopher Street Day in Berlin, the number of cases rises rapidly. At the same time, there is a dispute among health authorities about how the outbreak should be assessed and how it should be communicated publicly – initially there is still talk of the “risk group of homosexual men”. Is there a threat of a new wave of stigmatization here – similar to the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic 40 years ago? Christian Gaa and Tim Schomann from Deutsche Aidshilfe want to prevent this with a targeted awareness campaign.

 One of the first Mpox patients in Germany experienced a severe course of the disease, the consequences of which he is still struggling with today. But he was also lucky, because he was not left with any disfiguring pockmarks. He has gone public with his story – because he wants to warn people not to take Mpox lightly. Science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt (40) agrees. He is openly gay himself and advocates a clear but non-discriminatory approach to the community: “As long as there is not enough vaccine to protect us and others, it helps if we have less sex with changing partners.”

A film by Dominik Wessely

Camera Ralf Klingelhöfer, Sebastian Weis, Sven Klöpper

Editor Gabriele Biasizzo

Producer Nele Huff
Executive Producer Antje Boehmert
Commissioning Editor Miriam Carbe

A production of DOCDAYS Productions for ZDF/ARTE

Length: 32 min
Release Date: 2022