In late May, shortly after experiencing a mild bout of COVID-19, Peter Kelly had a sudden fever. He soon realized that it wasn't the last of the COVID infections.
Over the course of several days, a resident of Toronto was exhausted and his muscles began to hurt. His temperature fluctuated between chills and night sweats. Then strange pain began to appear in different parts of his body — eventually from about 20 dozen he could see, mostly his feet, and his rectum and vision around it. Hidden painful things.
As a professional dancer, Kelly is accustomed to pain. He has had many injuries, recently having a fractured rib that has healed, and a severe eczema, a skin condition that can cause itching and burning sensation.
However, Kelly has never experienced as unexplained lesions as the unexplained lesions that appear on sensitive parts of his body.
"This was another level," he later recalled. "You can't control it. It feels like a razor blade in a way and constantly shocks you."
Followed by almost a month of inspection, There were three trips to the emergency room, one infected pain, and finally a confirmed diagnosis in the laboratory. Monkeypox virus, or MPXV, as is known in the scientific community.
"The physical aspects of what I experienced were pretty bad for a while, but what I noticed was that all these mental health aspects were probably the Lord I was dealing with. It was something like that, "he said.
"It's a very long quarantine period."
He's not the only one facing pain, uncertainty, and weeks of quarantine.
As a result of the global outbreak that began in May, more than 200 Canadians have been infected with MPXV. It is a virus known for its long-lasting, often painful symptoms that people spread until they recover.
Doctors, advocates, and health authorities are seeking more financial and housing support to enable people to safely quarantine for weeks as needed. COVID offers some important lessons on how to handle this emerging public. Health emergency.
Patients are quarantined until they are no longer contagious
Thanks to the COVID pandemic, the world is now used in terms such as quarantine and quarantine. became.
Recommendations aimed at controlling coronavirus infections usually outline a quarantine period of 5-10 days, with governments and businesses from quarantine hotelsWe provide a variety of support, including paid sick leave to Canada. Emergency Response Allowance,or CERB. It funded people who couldn't work for COVID related reasons.
For MPXV,Current federal guidanceis that public health authorities quarantine patients until they are considered non-infectious. Suggests. More in some cases.
"Many people over that long period will not be able to go to work, pay invoices, pay rent, or feed food if they are forced to be isolated. Dr. Darrelton, an infectious disease expert who treated multiple patients with MPXV at St. Michael's Hospital, said:
"And people face because of their willingness to adhere to public health principles. I think we must take responsibility for these very real challenges as a society. ”
The government gets clues from the measures used against COVID. Can be done, he added.
"What can be well isolated when people want to do the right thing is to protect their friends and family from getting something they just suffered."
'I lost all my work'
Through his painful weeks of MPXV trials, Kelly remained isolated in a downtown Toronto apartment. Appointment — I want to prevent others from having the same experience.
In a video call to CBC News, the 28-year-old said he had to cancel his gig job most of June, worried about how to pay his rent. I relied mainly on it. To a friend to drop food and cash for the coin-operated washing machine in his building.
"Financially, I lost all my jobs," said a self-employed dancer and personal who does not include the summer season in his salary work at a dance company in Toronto. The trainer said. "There are many layers of this."
During these stresses, he endured unpleasant daily wound care, constantly changing bandages on many lesions, and washing regularly. And killed all traces of the virus on the blood-covered sheet.
Kelly also visited the emergency room several times. He took the MPXV test once to figure out what was going on. The second was due to extreme pain from internal lesions, and the third was a few weeks after the wound on his leg turned red and became infected.
MPXV infection was confirmed in the mid-term, even before laboratory results were officially confirmed. -In June, Kelly said the Toronto Public Health Department provided support such as telephone check-in, access to social workers, and anyone who could link him to drug delivery, and he left home. A grocery store gift card that he didn't know how to use because he couldn't get out.
However, after several weeks, some of his lesions have not yet completely healed, so he said the period of isolation in the basement was almost unbearable. Still, he said it was easier than leaving his roommates and family in the same house.
"Fortunately, I live alone and have a complete apartment," he said. "I can't imagine a person being isolated in a room for more than 21 days."
Toronto considering the use of a COVID quarantine site
The incident was in Montreal, then Toronto, then In Canadian cities over the past few weeks, federal authorities have met with health professionals, state authorities, and local health departments to explore "various ways to break the chain of communication." Dr. Teresatam, Canada's Secretary of Public Health, answered the question. From last week's CBC news.
While vaccination campaigns against MPXV are underway in both Ontario and Quebec, she says the government is working with community organizations to develop non-stigma messages. Told. To date, more than 8,000 doses have been delivered, primarily around Montreal and Toronto.
"Of course, through COVID-19, we learned that people want to protect public health measures, so all levels of government do what they can to help them in isolation. I think we need to be supported to do so in certain cases. "
According to Toronto Public Health, a federal-funded quarantine site could be one way. The team is investigating whether voluntary COVID quarantine facilities can be used by people who test positive for MPXV if they cannot be quarantined at home.
Tan, an infectious disease specialist at St. Michael's Hospital, said he hoped these efforts were "faster."
"It's also ironic that I had a hard time learning this lesson during COVID and have to ask to do these things," he said.
"And I think the public opinion court really landed on the side of admitting how important these things are."
Men having sex with men
When this virus invades someone's body, it can take up to 21 days for symptoms to appear. Cases vary in severity, and some people experience very little, if any, obvious lesions.
However, when they appear, for the majority of patients, often painful rashes usually last about 2 weeks to 1 month, and people are thought to be transmitted from the onset of symptoms to the last scab. It has fallen.
In the meantime, multiple forms of close contact can spread the virus. Skin-to-skin contact such as contact or gender, respiratory droplets during conversation, and even exposure to someone's contaminated clothing or bedding.
Probably due to the first unlucky stroke, or due to changes in the way this virus is transmitted between humans-scientists are uncertain about the exact reason-infection is of the sexual network Sex with men, which began to appear worldwide among them and mainly influenced men.
"Gay, bi, and queer men have long been exposed to the risk of housing and income insecurity as a result of discrimination and prejudice. It is important to note that they are faced only because they are sexual and gender minorities. "
Kwag's outbreaks affecting men having sex with men endanger vulnerable groups and are significant for safe quarantine given the number of community members in precarious employment. He said it could create challenges. I live in multiple roommate households to access paid sick leave or to pay rent in major Canadian cities.
In early June, the CBRC sent a letter to Federal Health Minister Jean Eve Duclos on behalf of dozens of advocacy groups, MPXV who, like CERB, was identified or suspected of having someone. He said the infection needed to be quarantined. The
group also emphasized the need to expand support for food and drug delivery services. So far, there is no formal response, according to Mr. Kwag, but the organization expects to hear the message.
"Government has a real opportunity to make the decisive investment needed to help people who have or may have monkeypox. There is, "he said.
"We need to do everything we can to prevent this from becoming a big problem."
'Stop stigmatizing'
It has long been clear that anyone can catch an MPXV.
Sometimes the infection can be fatal, mainly among high-risk groups such as infants and pregnant people. The virus inhabits reservoirs of animals, including monkeys of the same name and various other species, and has spread to humans for decades throughout certain regions of West Africa and Central Africa.
However, the ongoing human-to-human spread observed in current global outbreaks is rare. So is the fact that the overwhelming majority of cases are contained in one particular group.
Kelly is one of Toronto's gay communities and is not shy about suspected MPXV infections at local baths.
"I try to be very open about my sexuality and very sex positive. For me, I obviously contracted it through sex. — And it's not always on track for many people, but that's the way it happened to me, "he said.
"I hope people understand it, have empathy, compassion, and understanding, and stop stigmatizing something like this."
Pointing around MPXV around HIV, another virus that can infect anyone regardless of sexual orientation. The stigma echoes. Kelly has already received a discriminatory message that he has caught "Gaypox" on his personal social media channel.
"At this point, we are influencing these communities," he said. "But that doesn't mean it doesn't affect other people."
So the weeks spent in the apartment hurt both his finances and his mental health, Kelly was keen to isolate the entire time it took for the lesion to heal.
On June 21, he received some good news from public health contacts. The quarantine time is over.
Wearing jeans and a white tank top, Kelly stands on a sunny street and looks back on an unexpected MPXV attack. He said more support services would facilitate weeks of quarantine, while opening a quarantine site could help others who did not live alone.
"Because there are people who need them," he said.