The city of Montreal has been declared the epicenter of monkeypox in North America, with more confirmed cases within the city than the rest of Canada and the United States combined.
Many marine residents are anxiously watching the number of cases rise – not only because of the proximity, but also because the city serves as a popular weekend getaway for East Coast residents.
Read more: Quebec already has 132 cases of monkeypox, most of them in Montreal
No cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in any of the maritime provinces as of Wednesday, with officials in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the PEI saying it was monitoring the situation in the west.
Quebec health officials said on Tuesday that only three cases in the province required hospitalization, all of which were discharged after discharge.
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Montreal’s director of public health, Dr. Milen Druen, added that most of the city’s 126 cases involved men having sex with men.
“We currently have a focus that is really focused on a specific community,” she said.
Globally, men who have sex with men are disproportionately involved in the monkeypox epidemic.
In a presentation to the World Health Organization earlier this month, Dr Gianfranco Spiteri of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control spoke in detail about how close skin-to-skin contact during sexual intercourse has served as a major mode of transmission abroad. .
The same is suspected in Canada.
But St. John’s epidemiologist Susanne Gulliver is calling for caution with reports here – she said anyone can catch monkeypox, it’s just that it’s spreading in the LGBTQ2 community.
“It’s unfortunate that it’s related to men who have sex with men. It’s a very, very slippery, scary slope, “she said.
“The way it’s talked about, sometimes I just start screaming about the mistakes we made with AIDS in the ’80s,” Gulliver said.
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You can get monkeypox during sex, she said, but with that kind of close contact, you can also catch COVID-19 or another contagious disease that the other person has.
Gulliver said not only is the inherent stigma here, but it can also put many people to sleep with a false sense of security when potentially exposed.
“People think, ‘As long as I’m out of Tinder, I’ll be fine,'” she said.
“But if that was the case, then we wouldn’t be vaccinating all their contacts, their families.”
A variant of the smallpox vaccine has been shown to be effective against monkeypox, as both come from the orthopox virus family.
In Montreal, the distribution of doses has been extended to prostitutes and men who visit Montreal and plan to have sex with other men during their visit.
“This is an additional measure we are introducing to control the outbreak,” Druin said.
It is a little harder for Canadians in the Atlantic to get a chance, with at least one province in the region excluding the distribution of doses to potentially vulnerable passengers heading to Montreal.
“New Brunswick is not currently providing the smallpox vaccine as a pre-exposure measure for monkeypox,” New Brunswick Ministry of Health spokeswoman Michelle Gunnard said in a statement to Global News.
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“We are focusing on risk awareness and preventive health measures for New Brunswick residents, while collaborating with other provinces on a vaccine strategy.
Read more: Monkeypox in Canada and how NS, NB health officials react
Nova Scotia’s health minister told Global News that they would check the information in the province, but did not return by the deadline.
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“The same thing we’ve been doing for two years, we’re going on for three,” Gulliver said.
Detailed public health measures in New Brunswick, which include:
- Stay home when you are sick or have skin wounds
- Practice breathing etiquette, including covering coughs and sneezes and wearing a face mask
- Hand hygiene
- Practicing safe sex
- Avoid close physical contact, including sexual contact, with a person suspected or confirmed to have monkeypox.
2:37 WHO considers reports of traces of monkeypox found in semen WHO examines reports of traces of monkeypox found in semen
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