Monkeypox outbreak 'shows signs of slowing' in Britain, health officials say

British health officials say the monkeypox outbreak across the country "shows signs of slowing," but that it's still too soon to know if the decline will be maintained.

In a statement on Monday, the Health Security Agency said authorities are reporting about 29 new monkeypox infections every day, compared to about 52 cases a day during the last week in June. In July, officials estimated the outbreak was doubling in size about every two weeks. To date, the U.K. has recorded more than 3,000 cases of monkeypox, with more than 70 per cent of cases in London.

The agency also said more than 27,000 people have been immunized with a vaccine designed against smallpox, a related disease.

"These thousands of vaccines, administered by the [National Health Service] to those at highest risk of exposure, should have a significant impact on the transmission of the virus," the agency said.

It said the vast majority of cases were in men who are gay, bisexual or have sex with other men and that vaccines were being prioritized for them and for their closest contacts and health workers.

Last month, Britain downgraded its assessment of the monkeypox outbreak after seeing no signs of sustained monkeypox transmission beyond the sexual networks of men who have sex with men; 99 per cent of infections in the U.K. are in men.

British authorities said they bought 150,000 doses of vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic, the world's only supplier. The first 50,000 doses have already been rolled out or will be shared soon with clinics across the country, and the next 100,000 vaccines are expected to be delivered in September.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has repeatedly declined to provide the number of monkeypox vaccines Canada has in the national stockpile, citing security concerns, despite providing that number for other vaccines and other countries sharing that information.

Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said during a news conference Friday that Canada has so far deployed 99,000 vaccines to provinces and territories. 

She said that it was "too soon to tell" if cases were slowing in Canada, although there may be "some early signs" that they are not increasing at the same rate as during the beginning of the outbreak.

There are now 1,059 monkeypox cases across Canada, with the bulk of them in Ontario and Quebec, and Tam said Canada will soon move to testing wastewater in different regions of the country to better track the spread of the disease, building off the infrastructure developed to monitor COVID-19 during the pandemic.

Anyone can become infected with monkeypox through multiple forms of close, physical contact with an infected person's lesions, including skin-to-skin contact such as touching or sex, as well as through respiratory droplets in a conversation, or even being exposed to contaminated clothes or bedding. 

Most people recover without needing treatment, but the lesions can be extremely painful and more severe cases can result in complications including brain inflammation and death.

Globally, there have been more than 31,000 cases of monkeypox reported in nearly 90 countries. Last month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak to be a global emergency and officials in the U.S. have classified the epidemic there as a national emergency, but Canada has not followed suit.