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Dr. Theresa Tam’s comments come when Canada has now confirmed 77 cases of monkeypox, with 71 in Quebec, five in Ontario and one in Alberta.
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Canadian press
My Rabson
Canada’s Director of Public Health Dr. Theresa Tam speaks at a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, December 22, 2020. Photo by Justin Tang / The Canadian Press
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OTTAWA – Canada’s public health official says the world needs to build better defenses against transmissible viruses as climate change and other factors increase the risk of more emerging infectious diseases in the coming years.
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Dr. Theresa Tam’s comments come when Canada has now confirmed 77 cases of monkeypox, with 71 in Quebec, five in Ontario and one in Alberta.
Globally, there are at least 550 confirmed cases in 30 non-endemic countries where the virus is not normally found. It is the largest outbreak to occur outside of West and Central Africa, where it is now endemic in at least 10 countries.
The World Health Organization has not specified where the current outbreak began, but WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that “the sudden appearance of monkeypox in many countries at the same time suggests that transmission may not be detected for some time “.
Tam said cases in Canada currently include a specific group of individuals who have close and intimate sexual contact, but that could change.
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“So far it hasn’t gone much beyond the initial risk groups, but it could happen and we need to be prepared for that,” he said.
Public health officials have said that although everyone is susceptible to the virus, groups of cases have been reported among men who have sex with men.
Tam MP Dr. Howard Njoo said he was aware of the potential for stigma and discrimination and stressed that the spread of the virus was not limited to any specific group.
Tam said from a broader perspective, Canada and the rest of the world need to be better equipped when outbreaks like this occur.
“Emerging infectious diseases can always affect us,” he said. “And we should be as prepared as we can be, which means strengthening global public health capacity.”
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Tam said improving capacity in all countries “is really important” because with climate change and other factors there is more human and animal interaction, which is often how animal-transmitted viruses become human pandemics.
“I think we will see an increase in the number of these types of emerging infectious diseases, and with good capacity, not only in Canada, but globally, we can help manage them and reduce their impact as much as possible.” said Tam.
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The first non-endemic cases of smallpox in monkeys were confirmed in the UK in early May. The first cases were confirmed in Canada on May 19.
African scientists and doctors are tired of the sudden interest in monkeypox as it infects Western countries, which have largely ignored the virus as it spread to parts of Africa.
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He also called it a “neglected tropical disease” on Friday.
“We need to have better international collaboration and support to learn collectively together globally,” he said.
The monkey’s smallpox got its name because it was first found in monkeys in a laboratory in Denmark in 1958, but in the wild it is found mainly in small rodents such as rats, squirrels and shrews.
A global population exhausted after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic sees the arrival of the smallpox of the monkey with alarm and fear, although the virus does not spread through the air as does the cause of COVID- 19.
In contrast, the smallpox virus spreads primarily through close contact with the virus in other humans or objects such as bedding. Although it can be fatal, it is often not, causing symptoms such as fever, headache and muscle aches, and smallpox-like lesions on the skin.
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It can take an infected person a week or two to show symptoms, and Tam warned that while we know a lot about how the monkeypox virus behaves in endemic countries, we know little about how it can behave in populations that are both. mostly unvaccinated against it and have no natural levels of immunity.
A smallpox vaccine is also approved for use against monkeypox and Canada has a supply of the vaccine. Some doses have already been sent to Quebec to vaccinate close contacts from known cases, and Tam said there are talks with all provinces to determine whether some should be “prepositioned” across the country.
He said contact tracking is proving difficult, and while a large-scale public vaccination campaign against monkeypox is not expected, the existing campaign could be expanded to try to close the outbreak in Canada.
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