The tally since Monday has increased by 74 cases from the 156 confirmed on July 11. The agency’s latest report says cases are largely in southern Ontario, with 172 cases in Toronto, as well as one each in Sudbury and North Bay. One of the confirmed cases is a woman — who was registered last week — and the rest of the infected people are men, with an average age of 37. Public health says most cases are among men who report close contact with men, but they say anyone can get monkeypox. The report says nine people have been hospitalized with the disease and one person is in intensive care. There are also eight possible cases of monkeypox in Ontario, all in men between the ages of 31 and 69. Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said recently that monkeypox will likely be around for “many months” because of the long incubation period, but noted that Ontario is not seeing rapid growth of the virus. The virus generally does not spread easily and is transmitted through prolonged close contact through respiratory droplets, direct contact with skin lesions or body fluids, or through contaminated clothing or bedding. Common symptoms include a rash, mouth and genital lesions, and swollen lymph nodes. Monkeypox disease comes from the same family of viruses that cause smallpox, which the World Health Organization declared to have been eradicated worldwide in 1980. Smallpox vaccines have been shown to be effective in fighting monkeypox. . Local public health units across Ontario have vaccination clinics for those the province deems to be at high risk of contracting monkeypox. Moore said the province is not looking to expand its vaccination strategy at this time because “it seems to be working.”
