PHOTO CHRISTINNE MUSCHI, REUTERS ARCHIVES
While the speed with which our health authorities responded to monkeypox is startling, it is possible—and desirable—to improve our performance.
We have good news and bad news about monkeypox.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
First, the good news: it is possible to wipe it off the map in this country.
Then, the bad: we are not yet putting all the chances on our side to get there.
It is normal, of course, not to worry as much as was the case at the very beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Monkeypox is mostly mild (there were seven hospitalizations in Montreal for 317 confirmed cases as of 1er august). Even if suffering from it can be very painful, few people die of it.
The disease is also not highly transmissible.
The idea is not to scare the world. Nor are we expecting health measures of the same type as those put forward at the height of the COVID-19 epidemic.
It has nothing to do.
Still, it’s important to take monkeypox seriously. And it is crucial to slow its progress in Quebec and Canada.
We want to prevent it, as much as possible, from becoming endemic. That is to say, to crack down here permanently.
We have to recognize that we reacted more effectively at home than in the United States. A former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week criticized US health authorities for not testing enough and not having enough vaccines.
If monkeypox takes permanent hold in the United States and becomes an endemic virus that adds itself to our repertoire of pathogens, it will be one of the worst public health failures of modern times, not only because pain and risk of disease, but also because it was so preventable.
Scott Gottlieb, ex-FDA commissioner, in the New York TimesMonday
The situation is not the same on this side of the border. In fact, the speed with which our health authorities responded is startling. The first cases of monkeypox in Montreal were confirmed on May 20 and it only took seven days to make the vaccines available in the city.
However, it is possible — and desirable — to improve our performance. This is the message that doctor Réjean Thomas, president and founder of the L’Actuel medical clinic, is trying to convey these days.
It is necessary, among other things, according to him, to vaccinate even more. It makes sense. So far, 15,303 vaccines have been administered (out of a target of 25,000). That’s good, but it’s still not enough.
More members of at-risk populations (currently targeting men who have sex with men) need to be educated and convinced to roll up their sleeves.
Especially, the doctor recalled in our pages recently, that the Montreal Pride festival is taking place this week and that there will be “a lot of people in town”. Vaccination efforts must therefore be intensified rapidly.
But that’s not all.
It is absolutely necessary to invest in research, in prevention and in action. Let’s not neglect this epidemic, which is a new emerging disease.
Dr Rejean Thomas
The challenge is global. Moreover, the more the disease progresses elsewhere in the world, the more difficult it will be to eradicate it completely here. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on July 23 “a public health emergency of international concern”.
That day, the WHO also issued a warning that remains fundamental in the context of the strategies put in place to fight against monkeypox: it is also important to fight the stigmatization that we already see against members of the communities most affected by the disease.
Stigma must also be eradicated.