Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:01 pm on 24 May 2022.
Well, I absolutely concur with what the leader of Plaid Cymru has said there, Llywydd. We've had no confirmed cases of monkeypox yet in Wales, but, when I discussed this yesterday with the health Minister and the deputy chief medical officer, he was very clear with us that this was just a matter of time. Wales is not immune from a disease of this sort. We're in the fortunate position, if that's the right way to put it, that, with cases occurring elsewhere in the United Kingdom, we've been able to put our response in place in advance of cases coming to Wales, and that is exactly what we were discussing yesterday: the actions being taken by Public Health Wales, by our health boards, to mobilise a public health response for dealing with cases of monkeypox if and when they do arise in Wales. When they do, the fact that cases may predominantly arise in one part of the population is no guarantee at all that they don't arise in other parts of the population, and nobody should feel that they are inhibited from coming forward for the help that they will need for what is, as we are told, a rare and not normally an exceptionally serious condition, but a very unpleasant and disturbing one. Nobody should be prevented from coming forward for help by any of the way in which this may be poorly reported.