Toronto Public Health says the total number of confirmed cases of smallpox in the city has reached nine.
As of June 9, the city’s public health agency says 23 more cases are being investigated. On Thursday, TPH updated the crawler on its website indicating new cases.
“We continue to monitor monkeypox activity in Toronto,” TPH said in a tweet.
Across Canada, there are 98 confirmed cases in Quebec, at least nine in Ontario, two in Alberta and one in BC.
Canada now has 110 confirmed cases of smallpox, according to Health Canada. Nearly 780 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported in 30 countries, mostly among men.
The federal government has issued a warning to travelers to be very careful when they are abroad because of the threat of catching the virus.
Smallpox is a rare disease that originates from the same family of viruses that cause smallpox, which the World Health Organization declared eradicated worldwide in 1980, but is generally not easily spread among humans. and is transmitted by prolonged close contact.
Toronto Public Health says the virus is not as transmissible as COVID-19.
It is usually transmitted by close person-to-person contact through respiratory drops, direct contact with skin lesions or body fluids, or indirect contact through contaminated clothing or sheets.
The health unit says symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, exhaustion, swollen lymph nodes and a rash that “often appears within a few days after the onset of symptoms.
“It starts in the face and extends to other parts of the body,” TPH notes.
Since the outbreak began in several countries around the world in early May, there have been no deaths.
TARGET | Dr. Christopher Labos, a Montreal epidemiologist, explains the monkey’s smallpox outbreaks:
Multiple outbreaks of monkeypox worldwide, says the epidemiologist
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s finding that there are two separate outbreaks of monkeypox in the U.S. means that the virus has probably escaped many times from West Africa, says epidemiologist Dr. . Christopher Labos.