The Alberta government announced Thursday it will begin offering the monkeypox vaccine to people identified as meeting eligibility criteria for targeted pre-exposure prophylaxis, aligning the policy of province with British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, where some gays. and bisexual men from Alberta had traveled to get shots.
Gay and bisexual men and their advocates told CBC News they were frustrated by having to travel to other provinces to get vaccinated against monkeypox.
While British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec have been offering preventive vaccination campaigns targeting those deemed at high risk of exposure to the virus, until Thursday’s policy change, Alberta was only giving the vaccine to people who they had really been exposed.
But starting July 29, Albertans age 18 and older who identify as meeting eligibility criteria for targeted pre-exposure prophylaxis can receive the monkeypox vaccine, Alberta said Health in Thursday’s press release.
Those eligible will include:
- Transgender, cisgender, or two-spirit people who identify as gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM) and who meet at least one of the following criteria:
- Having received a recent diagnosis (within the last six months) of a sexually transmitted infection.
- You are planning to have, or within the last 90 days, have had sex outside of a mutually monogamous relationship.
- Have or may be planning to attend sexual contact settings in the past 90 days (eg, bathrooms, sex clubs), or who work/volunteer in these settings.
- Any sexual contact with the people described above.
- Staff and volunteers in a social setting or place or event where sexual activity may take place between men (individuals described above).
Some Albertans were looking for shots outside the province
Edmonton resident Kory deGroot plans to go to Montreal next week with his partner on vacation. While there, the two were going to try to get vaccinated because the vaccine wasn’t available in Alberta, despite having a higher risk of contracting the virus and meeting other provinces’ vaccination criteria.
Most of the new cases of monkeypox in Canada and Europe have occurred in men who have sex with men (MSM), and deGroot, a gay man, said before the change that he was frustrated by what he saw as the slow response of Alberta to one development of the public health emergency.
“I don’t want to get [the virus] and you know, I just want to lower the risk,” he said. “I feel like what we’ve learned through the pandemic is right, prevention is key.”
DeGroot searched the Alberta Health and AHS websites for ways to get a monkeypox vaccine, but found no indication that he was eligible. Then he talked to friends and found out he was being offered in Montreal.
“So we plan to get that while we’re there so tourists can get the monkeypox vaccine,” he said.
Many places in Canada have already approached vaccination based on self-identified behaviours, vaccinating trans, gay, bi and other groups of men who have sex with men who have non-monogamous sex.
An Alberta health policy dated June 7 said the smallpox vaccine was only available to those who have been exposed to the virus.
By Wednesday, Alberta had administered 36 doses of Imvamune, the vaccine used to prevent and treat smallpox and smallpox. The province currently has 1,200 doses from the federal government and is working with the feds to acquire more, according to an Alberta Health spokesperson.
As of July 26, there have been 13 confirmed cases of monkeypox in Alberta.
By comparison, there have been 58 cases of monkeypox in BC as of July 26.
Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), BC’s health authority that stretches from Richmond to the Sunshine Coast and part of the Central Coast, started a pre-exposure vaccination campaign on July 1. It is aimed at transgender, gay, bisexual and other men who have sex. with men who meet additional high-risk criteria and are 18 or older, a spokesperson said in an email.
A health worker prepares monkeypox vaccine in Montreal on July 23, 2022. Tourists are among those lining up to receive monkeypox vaccines in Montreal as the Organization World Health Organization declares the virus as a global health emergency. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
As of July 26, VCH had vaccinated more than 6,000 people, some of whom reside outside of BC, at booked clinic appointments and pop-up outreach clinics at Vancouver queer community events and businesses.
“We are not actively encouraging people from outside BC to seek vaccination at our clinics,” wrote VCH public affairs specialist Jeremy Deutsch, “but if they are in the VCH region and meet the criteria for eligibility, they can be vaccinated.”
Deutsch added that they did not know how many or what percentage of patients had come from outside the province.
A color transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (teal) inside an infected cell (brown), shown in a handout photo captured at the Integrated Research Facility ( IRF) of NIAID at Fort Detrick, Maryland. (HO-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/The Canadian Press)
Many who work in gay men’s health see it as only a matter of time before the number of cases starts to grow in Alberta.
“While our case numbers are still relatively low compared to places like Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, it’s hard not to see us behind the eight ball,” said Nolan Hill, a gay men’s health specialist at the Center of Sexuality. in Calgary.
He said there is a lack of information from the provincial government for patients who are increasingly asking for testing and vaccinations for monkeypox when they come in for STI testing.
Instead, it falls on the community to often be left in the dark, which he said leads to increased stigma and concern that monkeypox will be seen as a gay disease.
“This lack of information I just think creates a sense of mistrust and a sense of feeling that the health care system has been left behind,” he said.
“We have seen that there is historic distrust of the community, in our health systems, starting with the AIDS epidemic.”
DeGroot hopes the lack of pre-exposure vaccination isn’t due to discrimination, but he’s still concerned it could be.
“It would be interesting to see the response if it was affecting a different demographic, for sure,” he said.
DeGroot still plans to get vaccinated when he goes to Montreal next week, but worries about equity issues for those who don’t plan vacations or simply can’t afford the plane ticket.
“If it continues to be like the only way Albertans can get a vaccine is by traveling out of the province,” he says, “that’s a big concern.”