The viral disease known as monkeypox appears to have reached New Brunswick.
Health Minister Dorothy Shephard made the revelation in the legislature on Wednesday.
“We now have a suspected case of monkeypox in our province,” Shephard said during question period.
A Health Department spokesman confirmed that they are aware of a suspicious case.
“All testing protocols are being followed, including sending samples to the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg,” Michelle Guenard wrote in an email.
“Until these results return, this case is not confirmed.”
Guenard did not provide any other details about the suspicious case, such as what health area the person is in.
In a press release Wednesday afternoon, the department said it was investigating a “possible travel-related case” of the disease.
“Public Health has made sure that the individual’s close contacts were notified and said he has no reason to believe they transmitted the infection,” the statement said.
“Public health wants to reassure New Brunswickers that the monkeypox virus is spread by close contact with infected humans or animals and is not spread like COVID-19. The public is not at risk.”
The department said Public Health will report any future confirmed cases and will ensure that appropriate action is taken in case a case is confirmed in the province.
At the end of last week, there were 25 confirmed cases of the disease in Quebec and one in Ontario.
“Additional cases are likely to be reported in the coming days, as the NML continues to receive samples for confirmatory testing from various jurisdictions,” the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said.
The spread usually occurs through close contact with the body fluids of an infected person, respiratory drops or sores, or direct contact.
Canada has not seen the spread of smallpox from person to person so far, according to PHAC, which noted that the risk of infection for the general population is currently low.
“It’s not as easily transmitted as COVID-19, where it spreads through air and aerosols,” Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy director of public health, said Thursday.
“In this case, it really seems to be more focused on individuals who have close contact with each other, especially with those who obviously have monkeypox.”
Common symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, exhaustion, swollen lymph nodes, and a new rash.