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Physical distancing recommended amid monkeypox spread The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said Thursday mass vaccinations are not yet needed to combat rising cases of the monkeypox virus in Canada, but people should keep their distance from others to avoid catching the virus. Canada confirmed 26 cases of monkeypox this week — it’s the first time the virus has ever been detected in the country. A total of 1,000 smallpox vaccine doses have been shipped to Quebec to help fight the outbreak. All but one of the confirmed cases of monkeypox in Canada are in Quebec — a situation Quebec’s Dr. Luc Boileau, interim public health director, described as a "serious outbreak" of the virus. He said 20 to 30 additional suspected cases are also under investigation. While government has so far steered clear of confirming the origin of the cases in Canada, doctors told Global News this week the source may have been a sauna in Montreal. Monkeypox is a zoonotic infectious disease that results in occasional human infections usually associated with exposure to infected animals or contaminated materials, according to PHAC. Because Canada stopped vaccinating for smallpox when it was eradicated in 1980, "the whole Canadian population is susceptible to it," despite most cases appearing to be spread through sexual contact between men, deputy chief public health officer Dr. Howard Njoo said this week. Public health officials are conscious of the potential of stigmatization and discrimination among the LGBTQ2 community, and stressed that monkeypox has the potential to infect anyone. Baby formula shortage in U.S. prompting concerns in Canada  This week, concerns over baby formula shortages in the United States spilled into Canada, after Health Canada said the country is facing a shortage of specialty formula made for infants with food allergies and some medical conditions. The shortages are due to a safety-related closure of a large manufacturing plant in the United States that is affecting global supplies. Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s baby formula supply largely remains "fine" for now, but many Canadian retailers have started limiting the number of formula products parents can buy due to an increase in panic-buying. The problems have led to questions about a giant China-based baby formula manufacturing plant in Kingston, Ont., and whether it could help address shortages. Concerns have also been raised about what alternatives exist for parents who can’t find the right kind of formula for their babies. This has prompted an increase in demand for donor breast milk and an increase in donations of donor milk at human breast milk banks in Canada and the U.S. 
Q: Is age a factor in how susceptible someone is to monkeypox? It turns out, this is not an easy question to answer. “What we know about monkeypox is based on studies done in very different settings, in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Nigeria. So I think it's important to keep in mind that … we do have a reasonable base of knowledge, but we don't know how it's going to play out in a higher resource setting,” said Anne Rimoin, the Gordon-Levin chair of infectious diseases and public health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Rimoin, who has studied the virus for two decades, says individuals who have received the smallpox vaccine have demonstrated some protection against monkeypox. That means anyone born after 1980 — when Canada and the U.S. stopped administering the smallpox vaccine — could be more susceptible. “The data that we have suggests that very young children may have more severe disease, but individuals who have been vaccinated may still have some protective immunity that may help them either avoid getting the disease or have a less severe case of it.” Regardless of age, a person’s individual immune system could also play a big factor, as could exposure levels and many other factors. That’s why it’s hard to say definitively how much age plays a role in one’s vulnerability to monkeypox, Rimoin said. “But we have to use the data that we have … and I do think the data do suggest, and certainly the studies that we conducted in DRC in the mid-2000s suggested, that waning immunity to pox viruses was playing a role in an increase in cases.” | 
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