Canada is reporting a total of 1,059 cases of monkeypox, with the vast majority coming from men..Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said during a press conference Friday the majority of cases came from men who had sexual contact with other men, with less than 1% coming from females.."We want to emphasize that anyone, regardless of their sex, race, or age can become infected with or spread the virus," Tam said..Tam said that as of August 10, a total of 511 cases have been reported in Ontario, 426 cases in Quebec, 98 in British Columbia, 19 in Alberta, three in Saskatchewan, and two in the Yukon..According to Tam, there have been 28 reported hospitalizations, two ICU admissions, and no deaths from the disease..She said while monkeypox is primarily a minor illness, the accompanying rash can be painful and impact "any part of the body.".More than 99,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine have been distributed to provinces and territories, and more than 50,000 people have been vaccinated. Toronto alone has administered 17,871 monkeypox vaccine doses..Tam told reporters Canada has "no plans right now" to recommend changes to the vaccination strategy to allow for fractional doses to be administered across the country. ."We've been connecting, of course, with our U.S. colleagues to look at their strategy and see if we can gather as much information as we can. There's limited data, but I think it is an important approach to explore," she said.."But for now, working together with the National Advisory Committee on Immunization [NACI], we're really pushing out the approach of one dose first to reach as many people as possible in our most highly impacted populations.".When asked about conducting wastewater testing for monkeypox, similar to what is currently being done for COVID-19, Tam said they have the "infrastructure" in place to begin doing that..Tam said that it was "too soon to tell" if cases were plateauing in Canada, but acknowledged there may be "some early signs" that cases are not increasing at the same rate as at the beginning of the outbreak.
