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Christopher Street Day Berlin (CSD Berlin) is one of Europe’s biggest and oldest pride events that takes place in the second half of July. It aims to highlight the importance of equal rights and treatment for LGBTQI+ people and to celebrate gay and lesbian culture in the city and beyond. This year, around 150 000 people joined the first in-person Pride celebration since before the Covid-19 pandemic, many traveling from all over Germany and other European countries to take part.
While Germany’s covid-19 measures may have been relaxed, the WHO European Region’s monkeypox outbreak – which has seen a sharp rise in men who have sex with men (MSM) – has raised concerns among health officials. . The CSD and the process, therefore, provided a great opportunity for health officials in Berlin to raise awareness of the risks, symptoms, and measures people can take to avoid infection and spread. Those who are at risk.
We spoke to Dr. Claudia Ruscher, an infection epidemiologist at the Berlin State Office of Health and Social Affairs, to find out how they are preparing to deal with the outbreak and what measures they have taken to spread information about monkeypox in particular. In the year Get ready for Christopher Street Day on July 23, 2022.
“We’re a small team that assesses the situation of a pandemic, whether it’s Covid-19, measles, West Nile virus — or now monkeypox,” she says. “We work with local health departments to take action to control those outbreaks – which includes reporting risks.”
“At the beginning of the epidemic, we created an information page on our website, which gives an up-to-date snapshot of the situation in Berlin, as well as routes of transmission, the incubation period for the disease, advice on sexual behavior. Infection and other important preventive measures
In addition, Dr. Ruscher and his team developed a communication campaign leading up to the Pride event in consultation with the Robert Koch Institute—a German federal government agency and research institute for disease control and prevention—as well as civil society organizations. Gay counseling center Manchek and AIDS charity Deutsche Aidshilfe to ensure messages and materials are accurate, effective and engaging.
They also support national authorities and event organizers in planning and coordinating mass and large gathering events, using the Simian Disease Toolkit developed by WHO/Europe and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) as a guide. Dr. Rusher described the toolkit as particularly helpful in shaping how to best communicate with high-risk groups without fear of stigma and how to effectively communicate disease prevention measures. The toolkit consists of ready-to-use and customizable tools that health authorities and event planners can use for public health preparedness and risk assessment. Early warning, warning and response (EWAR); event-based monitoring; contact search; and for Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) in monkey disease for multiple cohorts.
After this, Dr. Rusher and his team mapped out the best places to broadcast their campaign and materials, providing valuable information to their main target audience – MSM and sex workers – before the big day. Different design and language versions are also available, giving venues a choice when deciding which one is best suited for their client or setting.
“We’ve created printed materials like postcards and posters with QR codes that link to our apps and information pages,” she says. “We also placed online ads on relevant dating apps and gay Berlin websites and bought 1 million social media impressions from CSD Berlin to increase our reach.”
In addition, we have reached out to every possible bar, club, sauna – in fact, all the places we have identified as transmission channels – to take our materials, have them put our apps on their websites and link to our information page.”
“Perhaps most importantly, we met with the CSD Berlin organizers and agreed to share links to materials and apps. We are very pleased to see that they are using our live article on Monkey Disease to provide complete information about Monkey Disease on their website.
Although evaluation of the impact of her CSD campaign is still underway, Dr. Rusher is proud of what she and her small team have accomplished.
“We epidemiologists – nerds – are not, first of all, communication experts,” she laughs. “But despite that, and being a small-capacity group, we were able to successfully engage LGBTQI+ civil society organisations, Christopher Street Day organizers and sexuality venues – which are the source of many issues. A message urging people to take monkey disease seriously and take personal responsibility to prevent it from spreading further.
Since launching the Monkeypox Resource toolkit, WHO has also developed a new mobile-friendly web tool, an interactive dashboard, which provides individuals with the information they need on monkeypox before attending large events and meetings.
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