TORONTO — Ontario Public Health says it has reported the province’s first case of monkeypox in a woman.
The agency said there were 156 confirmed cases of the disease in the province as of July 11, all but one of them men.
The median age of confirmed cases, which are mostly reported in Toronto, is 37 years.
Ontario’s chief medical officer recently said monkeypox is likely to be around for “many months” because of the long incubation period, but noted that Ontario is not seeing rapid growth of the virus.
Public health officials say most cases are among men who report intimate contact with men, but say anyone can contract monkeypox.
The virus usually does not spread easily and is transmitted by prolonged close contact through respiratory droplets, direct contact with skin lesions or body fluids, or through contaminated clothing or bedding.
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.
Local public health units in Ontario are holding vaccination clinics for those the province deems to be at high risk of contracting monkeypox.
Moore said the province doesn’t want to expand its vaccination strategy right now because “it seems to be working.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 14, 2022.
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