There are officially four cases of monkeypox in the province.
During a press conference Thursday, chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw addressed concerns of stigmatization of the LGBTQ2S+ community following a series of tweets that indicated the majority of confirmed cases thus far have been in men who reported having sex with other men.
"This means that there may be an elevated risk in that community right now," she said Thursday, adding that province has reached out to organizations supporting members of the LGBTQ2S+ community and after garnering feedback, have provided information to be circulated to members.
Hinshaw said this outreach doesn't indicate that only one community has the potential to be affected.
"We are working with these organizations and sharing this current risk factor information to ensure that people have accurate, timely data about the outbreak," she said. "This is not being done to shame or stigmatize anyone and it does not mean that anyone who has contracted monkeypox or is a close contact has done anything wrong."
The virus is spread through close skin-to-skin contact with an individual who has symptoms, or close contact with contaminated items like clothes or bedding.
Symptoms include fever, swollen glands, new sores and a rash. Although these symptoms can be associated with various conditions, those with new or worsening symptoms of this nature are encouraged to call Health Link at 811 for additional information.
According to Hinshaw, the overall risk of contracting monkeypox in the province is low, all positive cases are currently isolating and co-operating with the contact tracing process.
During the June 9 press conference a reporter told Hinshaw groups were expressing dissatisfaction with a 'monkeypox fact sheet' distributed by the province, explaining that they felt it was shaming and stigmatizing the community, similar to what occurred during the AIDS crisis.
"I'm sorry that that particular fact sheet caused that, that was certainly not the intent," Hinshaw said in response.
"We tried to get feedback from several organizations about the wording, the language and did our best to balance the need for timely dissemination of accurate information," she said. "But I absolutely understand groups that didn't have the opportunity to provide feedback on content may feel that they would have wished that we had framed things differently."
COVID-19 was also addressed during the press conference, with Minister of Health Jason Copping joining Hinshaw virtually to present the numbers which were released Wednesday.
All leading indicators, including hospital and intensive care submissions and wastewater data, continue to trend downward.
There are currently 816 in hospital with the virus and 24 in the ICU.
From May 17 to May 23. 42 COVID-related deaths were reported to Alberta Health. Also in that time period, 33 previously reported COVID deaths were reclassified and removed from the total death count, meaning the there was an increase of nine in this week's numbers.
