In the wake of the United States declaring monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday, questions are being raised about whether Canada should follow suit as the number of cases continues to rise.
The US move follows a similar announcement late last month by the World Health Organization that declared monkeypox a global health emergency, and in both cases, these developments are triggering increased attention and, in US, more money and other resources to fight the virus.
Read more: Monkeypox: US declares health emergency amid outbreak
Dr. Don Vinh, an infectious disease specialist at McGill University Health Centre, says he believes Canada, as a WHO member state, has an obligation to follow suit now that the agency The United Nations has declared the monkeypox outbreak an international public health emergency. concern
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“We have to respond accordingly,” he said. “I think formally declaring an emergency response helps kind of shepherds or head administrations, who can be a little bit ambivalent.”
Such a declaration in Canada should not resemble the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the most recent event to trigger a Canadian health emergency declaration, he said.
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But he said it could trigger a deployment of additional resources that would be helpful to those fighting the virus where it is now spreading in Canada and prevent it from becoming more difficult to contain in the future.
Read more: Monkeypox declared a global health emergency. Are travel restrictions needed?
“We have a window of opportunity right now where we have some control,” Vinh said.
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“I think what we’ve seen with COVID is that if we have kind of a mixed approach to it — some cities or provinces do it one way and some do it another way — we’re going to lose our opportunity to control- ho. that.”
Canada has confirmed 931 cases of monkeypox as of Aug. 5, up from 890 two days earlier, according to data from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). Ontario now leads the country in the number of cases, taking over from Montreal, which had been Canada’s hot spot for the virus until recently.
The number of cases is highest in the United States with more than 6,600 people infected with the zoonotic disease which, until recent months, had never been seen outside of central and west Africa.
Response to monkeypox in Canada
State governments and the Biden administration have faced criticism for their slow response to the outbreak in the United States, with clinics in major cities such as New York and San Francisco saying they have not received enough of the two-shot vaccine to meet demand and some have had to stop offering the second dose to ensure the supply of the first doses.
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Canada has not faced the same scrutiny, and experts say it can be commended for moving quickly to address the outbreaks, particularly in Toronto and Montreal, the country’s two main areas of infection.
The Canadian response has been remarkably effective in targeting the population that has so far been most affected (men who have sex with men) by ensuring they have quick and easy access to vaccines and are educated about the virus through trusted sources. in their communities, says Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital.
Because of that, an emergency declaration may not make much difference, except perhaps in technical terms, he said.
“We’ve been treating this as an emergency,” Bogoch said.
Read more: Monkey pox is now a global health threat. But the risk isn’t necessarily higher in Canada, experts say
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“We had a relatively quick but very coordinated response that’s ongoing and other places didn’t do it to the same extent.”
However, there is still room for improvement in Canada, particularly in reducing barriers to care, testing and diagnosis and expanding access to preventive measures such as vaccines, Bogoch added.
“But we’re doing well relative to other places. We really are.”
Asked whether Canada was imminently considering declaring a public health emergency on Thursday, a PHAC official said Canada “recognizes WHO’s determination and recognizes that the global monkeypox outbreak requires a response global emergency” and stressed that the federal government has treated monkeypox as a priority since the outbreak began in May.
Questions sent to the office of federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos asking whether the government was considering a declaration of emergency were deferred to the PHAC.
The agency has deployed more than 80,000 doses of Imvamune vaccine to provinces and territories and is supporting decentralized testing by providing control material and protocols to laboratory partners across the country, PHAC said in a statement.
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“PHAC also continues to work closely with international, provincial and territorial health partners to gather information on this evolving outbreak and to determine the best course of action to stop the spread of monkeypox in Canada,” said Anna Maddison, PHAC spokesperson. an email to Global News.
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“Canada will also continue to work with WHO and international partners to strengthen the global response to the current monkeypox outbreak.”
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While Canada’s actual number of cases remains lower than the U.S., the per capita infection rate is higher in Canada than south of the border, which is a data point worth noting, says the Dr. Sameer Elsayed, an infectious disease. physician and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University.
That’s why he says it might be reasonable for Canada to consider declaring monkeypox a public health emergency in the near future, especially if the number of cases continues to rise at its current rate, he said.
Read more: Monkeypox: Canada’s top doctor urges people at risk to get vaccinated as cases rise
But that declaration would require putting additional resources and funds toward this virus for things like vaccine clinics, contact tracing, testing, education and other measures, Elsayed said.
At a time when health systems in all provinces and territories are facing what virtually every health professional has called a “crisis” of staff and resources, Elsayed says she believes a declaration of emergency in the ‘health care in general in Canada is more urgent and should be. go hand in hand with any such statement for a single virus.
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That way, more resources and a greater sense of urgency would go to many areas of the health care system that would collapse under the weight of significant delays in care, patient surges, and a mass exodus of health workers across the board. the country, he said.
“We don’t have enough money in the system. So we need money for monkeypox, but we also need money for other conditions,” Elsayed said.
“It would be reasonable to declare a state of emergency, but only if we are declaring a state of emergency for our overall health care system that is in shambles.”
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