Canada now has 77 confirmed cases of monkeypox, according to figures supplied Friday by Canada’s chief public health officer and Santé Québec, the provincial health ministry.
Of the cases identified so far through laboratory testing, 71 are from Quebec, five are from Ontario and one is from Alberta.
The figure is more than 15 times higher than the five confirmed cases the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) reported nationwide late last month.
While a disproportionate number of cases in this monkeypox outbreak have shown up among gay and bisexual men, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam told reporters Friday that all groups are potentially susceptible to the virus.
“The risk of exposure is not exclusively related to any group or setting. No matter your gender or sexual orientation, anyone could get infected and spread the virus if they come into close contact — including intimate sexual contact — with an infected person or their contaminated objects,” Tam said.
With that caveat, Tam said it’s important that public health officials “learn from the HIV experience” and “involve communities right from the start that are most impacted.”
She said governments must “act fast” to “stop the chains of transmission” and prevent the virus from spreading further.
“At the moment it hasn’t gone beyond the initial risk groups, but it could happen and we need to be ready for that,” she said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued public health advice to gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men last week, urging the community to be on the lookout for certain symptoms — a rash leaving blisters on the face, hands, feet, eyes and mouth, fever, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, muscle aches and a lack of energy.
Quebec appears to be an epicentre of this outbreak. The province has started vaccinating the close contacts of infected people — a so-called “ring vaccination” approach to prevent a wider outbreak.
Tam said Canada has a stockpile of smallpox shots ready to deploy to other parts of the country, if necessary.
Smallpox and monkeypox belong to the same family of viruses and the smallpox vaccine has proven effective against monkeypox in the past. But that shot has not been in circulation in Canada for decades because smallpox was eradicated here in the late 1940s.
Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease that occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas. Historically, most cases have been reported in the Congo Basin.
The emergence of this virus in Western countries has confounded researchers. To date, the WHO has identified at least 550 monkeypox cases in 30 countries worldwide where the virus is not believed to be endemic.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Dr. David Heymann, who once headed WHO’s emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease is sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium.
“We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission,” said Heymann.
Madrid’s senior health official said last week that the Spanish capital has confirmed 30 cases so far.
Enrique Ruiz Escudero said authorities are investigating possible links between a recent Pride event in the Canary Islands, which drew some 80,000 people, and cases at a Madrid sauna.
U.K. officials have said “a notable proportion” of the cases in Britain and Europe have been among young men with no history of travel to Africa who are gay, bisexual or have sex with men.
Authorities in Portugal and Spain also said their cases were among men who mostly had sex with other men and whose infections were picked up when they sought help for lesions at sexual health clinics.
Officials need to better prepare gay community: experts
Some observers from the gay community have said public health officials are not doing enough to directly alert men who have sex with men about the risk of monkeypox.
“Many well-intentioned officials appear fearful of saying something homophobic, and news outlets have published articles emphasizing that monkeypox is ‘not a gay disease,'” Jim Downs, a professor of the history of infectious diseases, recently argued in the Atlantic.
“Their caution is warranted, but health agencies are putting gay men at risk unless they prioritize them for interventions such as public-awareness campaigns, vaccines and tests.”
As the month-long Pride celebrations begin, public health experts James Krellenstein, Joseph Osmundson and Keletso Makofane also said in a recent op-ed in the New York Times that health officials should be making bolder interventions to raise awareness of the disease and expand vaccine availability among men who have sex with men.
Citing the way public health officials mobilized to contain a bacterial meningitis outbreak in New York City a decade ago, these experts called for targeted solutions for the gay community.
“Health officials provided vaccines at nightlife spots and places where men meet for sex,” they wrote. “As summer and Pride festivities near, we need similar approaches to help keep one another safe.”
OTTAWA – The New Democrats confirmed Thursday they won’t help Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives topple the government next week, and intend to join the Bloc Québécois in blocking the Tories’ non-confidence motion.
The planned votes from the Bloc and the New Democrats eliminate the possibility of a snap election, buying the Liberals more time to govern after a raucous start to the fall sitting of Parliament.
Poilievre issued a challenge to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh earlier this week when he announced he will put forward a motion that simply states that the House has no confidence in the government or the prime minister.
If it were to pass, it would likely mean Canadians would be heading to the polls, but Singh said Thursday he’s not going to let Poilievre tell him what to do.
Voting against the Conservative motion doesn’t mean the NDP support the Liberals, said Singh, who pulled out of his political pact with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a few weeks ago.
“I stand by my words, Trudeau has let you down,” Singh said in the foyer outside of the House of Commons Thursday.
“Trudeau has let you down and does not deserve another chance.”
Canadians will have to make that choice at the ballot box, Singh said, but he will make a decision about whether to help trigger that election on a vote-by-vote basis in the House.
The Conservatives mocked the NDP during Question Period for saying they had “ripped up” the deal to support the Liberals, despite plans to vote to keep them in power.
Poilievre accused Singh of pretending to pull out of the deal to sway voters in a federal byelection in Winnipeg, where the NDP was defending its long-held seat against the Conservatives.
“Once the votes were counted, he betrayed them again. He’s a fake, a phoney and fraud. How can anyone ever believe what the sellout NDP leader says in the future?” Poilievre said during Question Period Thursday afternoon.
At some point after those comments, Singh stepped out from behind his desk in the House and a two-minute shouting match ensued between the two leaders and their MPs before the Speaker intervened.
Outside the House, Poilievre said he plans to put forward another non-confidence motion at the next opportunity.
“We want a carbon-tax election as soon as possible, so that we can axe Trudeau’s tax before he quadruples it to 61 cents a litre,” he said.
Liberal House leader Karina Gould says there is much work the government still needs to do, and that Singh has realized the consequences of potentially bringing down the government. She refused to take questions about whether her government will negotiate with opposition parties to ensure their support in future confidence motions.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet hasn’t ruled out voting no-confidence in the government the next time a motion is tabled.
“I never support Liberals. Help me God, I go against the Conservatives on a vote that is only about Pierre Poilievre and his huge ambition for himself,” Blanchet said Thursday.
“I support the interests of Quebecers, if those interests are also good for Canadians.”
A Bloc bill to increase pension cheques for seniors aged 65 to 74 is now at “the very centre of the survival of this government,” he said.
The Bloc needs a recommendation from a government minister to OK the cost and get the bill through the House.
The Bloc also wants to see more protections for supply management in the food sector in Canada and Quebec.
If the Liberals can’t deliver on those two things, they will fall, Blanchet said.
“This is what we call power,” he said.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand wouldn’t say whether the government would be willing to swallow the financial implications of the Bloc’s demands.
“We are focused at Treasury Board on ensuring prudent fiscal management,” she said Thursday.
“And at this time, our immediate focus is implementing the measures in budget 2024 that were announced earlier this year.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – Treasury Board President Anita Anand has been sworn in as federal transport minister at a ceremony at Rideau Hall, taking over a portfolio left vacant after Pablo Rodriguez resigned from cabinet and the Liberal caucus on Thursday.
Anand thanked Rodriguez for his contributions to the government and the country, saying she’s grateful for his guidance and friendship.
She sidestepped a question about the message it sends to have him leave the federal Liberal fold.
“That is a decision that he made independently, and I wish him well,” she said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not present for the swearing-in ceremony, nor were any other members of the Liberal government.
The shakeup in cabinet comes just days after the Liberals lost a key seat in a Montreal byelection to the Bloc Québécois and amid renewed calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down and make way for a new leader.
Anand said she is not actively seeking leadership of the party, saying she is focused on her roles as minister and as MP.
“My view is that we are a team, and we are a team that has to keep delivering for our country,” she said.
The minority Liberal government is in a more challenging position in the House of Commons after the NDP ended a supply-and-confidence deal that provided parliamentary stability for more than two years.
Non-confidence votes are guaranteed to come from the Opposition Conservatives, who are eager to bring the government down.
On Thursday morning, Rodriguez made a symbolic walk over the Alexandra Bridge from Parliament Hill to Gatineau, Que., where he formally announced his plans to run for the Quebec Liberal party leadership.
He said he will now sit as an Independent member of Parliament, which will allow him to focus on his own priorities.
“I was defending the priorities of the government, and I did it in a very loyal way,” he said.
“It’s normal and it’s what I had to do. But now it’s more about my vision, the vision of the team that I’m building.”
Rodriguez said he will stay on as an MP until the Quebec Liberal leadership campaign officially launches in January.
He said that will “avoid a costly byelection a few weeks, or months, before a general election.”
The next federal election must be held by October 2025.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will try to topple the government sooner than that, beginning with a non-confidence motion that is set to be debated Sept. 24 and voted on Sept. 25.
Poilievre has called on the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to support him, but both Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet have said they will not support the Conservatives.
Rodriguez said he doesn’t want a federal election right away and will vote against the non-confidence motion.
As for how he would vote on other matters before the House of Commons, “it would depend on the votes.”
Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos will become the government’s new Quebec lieutenant, a non-cabinet role Rodriguez held since 2019.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
— With files from Nojoud Al Mallees and Dylan Robertson
