In Canada, Montreal is increasingly visited… by Americans who want to get vaccinated against monkeypox. Located about 70 km from the US border, the Quebec metropolis made the decision at the start of its vaccination campaign to accept anyone deemed at risk.
Robb Stilson is one of the Americans he took advantage of during a visit to Montreal.
“It is very difficult in the United States to get vaccinated (…) I have friends who waited 8 to 9 hours before being admitted,” says this artistic director from the queue of a pop-up vaccination center with her husband and two daughters
18,500 people vaccinated
Given the difficulty of tracing the origin of the infections, the Montreal authorities have chosen to direct their vaccination campaign to all those who “come into the current criteria of risk factors for the transmission of smallpox”.
“As tourists, they may be involved in activities that could put them at risk and, in a way, we are fighting the pandemic by allowing them to get vaccinated here so they don’t spread the infection, or here, or when they return home. says Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious disease specialist at the McGill University Health Center.
With this approach, combined with a vaccination campaign launched as soon as the first cases appeared in mid-May, Montreal has already vaccinated about 18,500 people, 13% of whom are foreigners. The goal is to deliver 25,000 doses to protect about 75 to 80% of people at risk, particularly men who have sex with other men or multiple partners.
“Limited reserves” in the West
In western Canada, the British Columbia Ministry of Health decided last week to no longer accept foreigners coming “for the purpose of vaccination,” citing “limited supplies” and considering the vaccine is now “widely available in the United States”.
Given the lack of available doses, the US health authorities also authorized a new injection procedure on Tuesday that should allow “the total number of available doses to be increased up to five times.”
Source: BFM TV
