As of this week, there have been 656 confirmed cases of monkeypox in Ontario.
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health says monkeypox activity in the province has peaked.
Dr. Kieran Moore says the province reached its total number of active cases in the week of July 15, when 16 to 18 cases were being identified a day through PCR testing, while now it’s down to only about one a day .
Moore says most of these new cases are travel-related, particularly from US hot spots, rather than people contracting an infection in Ontario.
He says Ontario has immunized 32,175 people against monkeypox and is waiting for the National Immunization Advisory Committee to provide guidance on whether and how to begin a second-dose strategy.
As of this week, there have been 656 confirmed cases of monkeypox in Ontario.
Monkeypox is spread when people have close physical contact with an infected person’s lesions, clothing, or bedding, and symptoms can include a rash, swollen lymph nodes, and fever.
Ontario’s progress is remarkable, Moore said, and the province has seen an absolute plateau.
“To me, the risk has gone down dramatically in Ontario,” he said in an interview.
In its latest report released Wednesday, Public Health Ontario said there were 656 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the province the previous day, an increase of 25 from the previous week.
The agency said 484 of the confirmed cases, or about 74 percent, were in Toronto, with all but five cases reported among men. The average age of all confirmed cases in the province is about 36 years, with confirmed cases ranging from 20 to 74 years old.
Public health says 19 people have been hospitalized with the disease in the province and two people have been in intensive care.
There are also 10 probable cases in Ontario.
Local public health units and Ontario alliances have held vaccination clinics in recent months for those deemed by the province to be at high risk of contracting monkeypox.
Moore said he is very grateful for the work the Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance has done and for all those at risk who got vaccinated or tested for symptoms.
“I think, in a remarkably short period of time, we’ve been able to limit the spread of this virus in Ontario,” he said. “I can’t thank everyone involved (enough) as it has clearly been successful for Ontario.”
The province expanded eligibility for the monkeypox vaccine in August to include a broader segment of the LGBTQ population as well as sex workers.
Until then, the priority group for the vaccine was gays, bisexuals and other men who have sex with men who meet certain criteria.
Some advocates have criticized the strategy for not including the homeless, arguing that the population overlaps disproportionately with the LGBTQ community and sex workers.
Public Health Ontario has said most cases are among men who report intimate contact with men, but said anyone can get monkeypox.
Smallpox disease comes from the same family of viruses that cause smallpox, which the World Health Organization declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Smallpox vaccines have been shown to be effective in fighting the virus of smallpox
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 16, 2022.