Toronto health officials are investigating the city’s first suspected case of Monkeypox.
An adult male in his 40s with recent contact with a person who travelled to Montreal is being investigated, according to the city’s public health department.
In a news release on Saturday afternoon, the department stated that although “the risk of infection to the general public is low, those who visited an event at the Axis Club at 772 College St. on May 14 and Woody’s bar, located at 476 Church St., on May 13 and 14 may have been exposed.”
The infected person is currently stable and recuperating in the hospital, the release said.
Monkeypox is a rare zoonotic infectious disease that can be transmitted from close contact with an infected individual through bodily fluids, sores or lesions on skin or respiratory droplets.
Sharing clothing, bedding or common items that have been contaminated with the infected person’s fluids or sores can also lead to the spread of monkeypox but common household disinfectants can kill the virus, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
The virus can also spread through bites or scratches from infected animals.
Symptoms of monkeypox include include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and a rash that usually appears on the face and spreads to other parts of the body. But, “most people recover on their own without treatment,” the public health agency said.
As of Friday, five cases have been confirmed and roughly two dozen others are under investigation, mainly in Quebec, PHAC said.
— With files from Saba Aziz