First two monkeypox cases confirmed in Canada

OTTAWA - The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) on Thursday confirmed the first two cases of monkeypox in Canada.

PHAC has alerted public health authorities to work with health care providers to look for patients who have signs or symptoms consistent with monkeypox, regardless of whether they have reported travel or have specific risk factors for monkeypox.

PHAC said in a statement that it is working with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and public health authorities in the province of Quebec, Canada to investigate potential exposure and contacts of a case of monkeypox recently identified in the United States.

The U.S. citizen had recently travelled to Canada from the United States, and may have been infected before or during his visit to Montreal, Quebec.

According to media reports, a limited number of cases of monkeypox have so far been reported in Britain, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United States.

Monkeypox is a sylvatic zoonosis that may cause infections in humans and the disease usually occurs in forested parts of Central and West Africa. It is caused by the monkeypox virus which belongs to the orthopoxvirus family, according to the World Health Organization.