The monkey’s smallpox continues to spread across Canada, especially in Quebec, Canada’s head of public health said Friday.
Speaking to reporters, Dr. Theresa Tam said 112 cases of the disease had been detected across the country, 98 in Quebec. There are nine cases in Ontario, four in Alberta and one in British Columbia.
Tam said all patients are men between the ages of 20 and 63. Most of them had sexual intercourse with other men.
“We are learning all the time about this virus that we have not seen outside of African countries,” Tam said.
Tam said doctors are testing people who have rashes and sometimes find diseases other than monkeypox.
“They’re testing a lot of people who are actually giving negative for the monkey’s smallpox but positive for other things,” he said.
“This is a way to launch the network into the front lines of public health and some of these people being tested actually have very minimal skin lesions, but they are still being tested and we are finding other causes.”
Tam said the public health agency is also analyzing wastewater and other surveillance systems to detect cases of smallpox and antibody levels in different populations.
Tam said the genetic analysis is showing that the smallpox strain of the monkey circulating in Canada is the same as circulating internationally. He said it appears that several outreach events appeared to have contributed to the spread.
Tam said doses of an effective monkeypox vaccine are being given to people at higher risk of exposure, and health officials recommend that people receive the vaccine within four days of exposure. While the disease can spread through sexual contact, it can also spread through things like bedding, he added.
The public health agency said it could not confirm how many suspicious cases there are across the country.
Although the high-level federal government lab in Winnipeg had been doing all the testing, it has begun working with the provinces to allow provincial labs to do the same.