Key takeaways:
- The confirmed cases have a minor, with another 20 to 30 people under probe.
- Quebec’s public health director Dr. Luc Boileau held a press conference Thursday, where he declared that Quebec would begin vaccination efforts against monkeypox.
Quebec will begin vaccinating some people with a smallpox vaccine to fight the spread of monkeypox in the Montreal region.
Quebec’s public health director Dr. Luc Boileau said Thursday that 25 patients with monkeypox have now been confirmed in the region. Fourteen of them are in Montreal, though all cases are tied to the greater Montreal area.
Approximately 20 to 30 more patients are also under probe, Boileau said.
Boileau emphasized that the spread of monkeypox was “a serious problem” but said it is not cleaning through the population like COVID-19.
“We aren’t anticipating a quick, massive number of cases,” he described. “That’s why we think it can be stopped.”
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To that end, Boileau stated that the smallpox vaccine — which hasn’t been routinely offered in Canada for decades — will be provided to those at high chance of acquiring the disease, such as those who have been in contact with confirmed cases.
Boileau said the region has access to hundreds of doses at the ready, but vaccination will only occur after public health requests. It will not be open to the general public.
Dr. Caroline Quach, chair of Quebec’s immunization committee, told the press conference that the vaccine —_ which was agreed upon in 2020 to control smallpox and other orthopoxviruses — has been shown to contain monkeypox in animal studies.
The vaccine, she said, will ideally be administered within four days of exposure but could be administered up to two weeks after.
“Data have shown that if you give it within four days, you stop the illness,” Quach said. “If you administer it between Day 5 and 14, it might not stop disease, but it might modify the evolution.”
Source – cbc.ca
