Leeds, Grenville and Lanark report their first confirmed case of monkeypox

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“Currently, the number (of cases) is not escalating rapidly, but it is increasing.

Ontario’s Chief Health Officer, Dr. Kieran Moore. Photo from YouTube /POSTMEDIA

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Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health reported its first laboratory-confirmed case of monkeypox on Monday.

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The case adds to the province’s total, which as of July 6 stood at 133 cases, according to Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer.

However, most of these cases are centered around the Toronto area or involve someone with a connection to the city.

Moore said Ontario has not seen a rapid increase in monkeypox cases and his vaccination strategy appears to be working.

“Right now, the number (of cases) is not escalating rapidly, but it is increasing,” Moore said in a recent interview. “We really think it’s stabilizing in Ontario in terms of slow growth.”

Moore said the province is working “diligently” to vaccinate those who have contracted the virus, as well as close contacts or anyone at risk of contact.

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“Over 8,000 people have been given the smallpox vaccine, which we believe has good protection against monkeypox,” he said.

The province isn’t looking to expand its vaccination strategy right now, Moore said, adding that it “seems to be working.”

“Usually this dose of vaccine has two doses 28 days apart,” Moore said. “We are looking at whether we should go back to those 8,000 individuals and provide a second dose.”

Monkeypox disease comes from the same family of viruses that cause smallpox, which the World Health Organization declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Smallpox vaccines have proven effective in fighting the monkeypox virus.

Monkeypox does not usually spread easily between people and is transmitted by prolonged close contact through respiratory droplets, direct contact with skin lesions or body fluids, or through contaminated clothing or bedding. Symptoms may include rash, oral and genital lesions, swollen lymph nodes, headache, fever, chills, myalgia, and fatigue.

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Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit said in a media release that the most commonly reported risk factors for developing monkeypox infection include “engaging in sexual or intimate contact (eg hugging, kissing, cuddling) with a new and/ or more than one partner.”

Dr. Alison McGreer, an infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, said the increase in cases in the province is “not alarming” but the situation is still “relatively fragile.”

“We don’t know what it will take to contain the epidemic,” McGreer said. “We’re not entirely sure that the virus hasn’t changed enough to allow for more sustained population transmission.”

McGreer said there is no immediate risk to most of the population from monkeypox.

With files from The Canadian Press.

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