As monkeypox continues to spread in Quebec with 52 confirmed cases, a Montrealer who has been in contact with an affected person has agreed to testify anonymously about his experience in the health system.
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Zac (not his real name) had the misfortune to see his roommate go to the emergency room after he contracted a high fever accompanied by night sweats and the appearance of lesions over a period of approximately two weeks.
“I was returning from a trip to New York last week to see my roommate with a fever, sweats, and then seeing boils appear on his body. Quite hypochondriac, especially after his visit to the emergency room, I had to go there too, ”explains Zac.
Indeed, as a contact case of his roommate newly declared positive for monkeypox, Zac also chooses to go to the emergency room of the CHUM this beginning of the week.
“We felt a real benevolence on their part as a desire to deal well with something that he knows very little about,” he explains.
With this testimony, he wishes to emphasize the high quality care and advice received from caregivers in a new situation.
He also noticed a certain opacity regarding the communication of new knowledge about the disease, and regarding access to vaccination for contact cases.
Long isolation… and mazes of exchanges for contacts
Regarding his roommate, his symptoms having appeared about a week before his admission to the emergency room for more than ten hours, he is isolated for the next two weeks.
As for Zac’s visit to the hospital, he who came mainly “to be sure of not having contracted the virus and to see me provide the necessary care preventively, or even receive the vaccination against smallpox”, was faster but more imprecise. .
His decision to do so was prompted by the most recent Public Health press conference about the disease. The authorities had indicated that contact cases should be vaccinated “as soon as possible”.
Throughout his journey to the CHUM emergency room, Zac had only good words for the behavior and preparation of the caregivers.
In particular, he learned how the disease was transmitted between humans. “As the CHUM nurse explained to me, you can catch this virus through sweat and materials touched and soiled by a sick person,” he explains.
“My roommate having had no sexual intercourse in the last few weeks, but having gone to his gym in Hochelaga several times, he surely caught it here, according to the statements of the nursing staff”, he adds. .
The nursing staff was nevertheless puzzled as to the procedure to follow to deal with his “contact case” file and on what advice or additional care to give him.
In fact, he only received one real piece of information: no vaccines at the CHUM!
“Through this visit to the emergency room, I learned that it is only Health Canada that takes care of vaccines”.
An opaque vaccination procedure and a minimal stock of doses
Zac adds that “Health Canada took care of contacting my roommate at the beginning of the week as part of its investigation to then decide whether or not it is necessary to contact me for a vaccination.”
“They want to decide whether or not the contacts we may have had represent a proven risk of smallpox transmission,” he said.
Health Canada actually contacted Zac right away and he was vaccinated preventively the same day. Since he is now protected preventively, he did not have a period of isolation to do.
“Anyway, I was told that as long as I had no fevers or other symptoms, I would not have had a period of isolation to respect,” he adds.
According to what our witness learned, this procedure exists because of a minimal supply of vaccine, and this while cases of monkeypox continue to increase in the country and in the rest of the world.
Zac therefore calls for vigilance and also hopes that the care pathway for patients and contact cases will become more fluid and less uncertain as we learn about this disease.
As a reminder, the disease is mainly manifested by “the appearance of fever, intense headaches, adenopathy (swelling of the lymph nodes), back pain, myalgia (muscle pain) and marked asthenia (lack of ‘energy),’ according to the WHO.
We now also know that its mode of transmission “is mainly by direct contact of damaged skin or mucous membrane with healthy skin or mucous membrane, and also by droplets, or by contact with infected linen”, according to different epidemiologists.
