Reuters
May 25
The Canadian province of Quebec confirmed 15 cases of monkeypox on Monday, the Quebec health department said on Tuesday, and more cases were expected in other parts of the country.
Nearly 20 countries where monkeypox is not endemic have reported recent outbreaks of viral disease, with more than 230 confirmed or suspected infections, mostly in Europe.
Canada’s federal health minister said more samples were being sent from other parts of the country to a Winnipeg lab for testing.
“We hope that more cases will be confirmed in the coming days,” Jean-Yves Duclos said in a statement. It was not immediately clear what symptoms the infected people showed, nor the severity of their condition.
Smallpox is a rare, though milder, human-like viral infection first recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1970s. The number of cases in West Africa has risen in the last decade.
Canada confirmed its first two cases of smallpox last week after Quebec authorities said they were investigating 17 suspicious cases.
Duclos said the federal government has begun “preposing the Imvamune vaccine and the therapeutics from our national strategic emergency storage in jurisdictions across the country.” A small shipment of the Imvamune vaccine was shipped to Quebec on Tuesday, he said.
“I want to reiterate to Canadians that this is a different situation than we saw with the advent of COVID-19,” Duclos said, noting that unlike the coronavirus pandemic, Canada already has a supply of vaccines by hand.