A major outbreak of measles has infected more than 800 people in Ontario. It’s the first outbreak of its size since the disease was declared eliminated in 1998.
Now, lower vaccination rates are leading to a serious outbreak in the province, enough to garner a travel advisory to the province from New York State south of the border.
Here’s what you need to know about measles — how it’s transmitted, how you can protect yourself, and whether you need to update your vaccinations.
Comments closed(Montreal) A COVID-19 vaccination campaign is launched this spring for people at risk of developing complications, Santé Québec announced on Monday.
Teams are currently deployed in the province’s long-term care homes, after which vaccination will be offered in private seniors’ residences (RPA) with a more vulnerable clientele.
In addition to CHSLDs and RPAs, seniors 75 years of age or older and people with immunodeficiency or dialysis are encouraged to go get their vaccine dose. This vaccination campaign also aims to reach people aged 65-74 who live with a chronic disease or in remote and isolated areas.
Non-targeted people aged 6 months and older can also receive the COVID-19 vaccine free of charge, says Santé Québec. If they have already been vaccinated, they should wait at least six months after their vaccine before receiving a new dose.
Comments closedFive years after the pandemic’s start, millions of Americans are still struggling with long-lasting symptoms of Covid-19. Cognitive difficulties are among the most troubling and common symptoms in people both old and young.
These ailments can be severe enough to leave former professionals like Ken Todd unable to work and even diagnosed with a form of mild cognitive impairment.
Comments closedHealth secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed another unorthodox view on vaccines, with the long-time vaccine critic declaring that vaccines for respiratory bugs that target a sole part of the pathogen they are meant to protect against do not work.
The claim was dismissed as erroneous by vaccine experts, who were befuddled by the secretary’s theory, espoused during an interview with CBS News.
Kennedy made the claim in explaining a controversial recent decision by political appointees at the Food and Drug Administration to delay granting a full license to Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, which is still given under an emergency use authorization or EUA.
Comments closedTORONTO – Ontario is reporting 155 new measles cases over the last week, pushing the province’s case count to 816 since an outbreak began in the fall.
The number of new cases has increased again after a few weeks of appearing to stabilize in the 100-per-week range, which public health physicians had taken as a sign of potential optimism.
Dr. Sarah Wilson, public health physician at Public Health Ontario, says the fact that Ontario has exceeded 800 cases is striking.
Comments closedThe US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has terminated nearly 800 research projects at a breakneck pace, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields, finds a Nature analysis of the unprecedented cuts.
The administration of US President Donald Trump began purging NIH-funded studies on topics that it deems problematic less than 50 days ago, continuously expanding its list to include research on topics ranging from COVID-19 to misinformation. Hundreds of the 30,000-plus scientists funded by the NIH yearly have been forced to halt their work after receiving notices that their research “no longer effectuates agency priorities”, and some have had to fire personnel or even shut down their laboratories.
Comments closedNearly 1 in 7 working-age US adults had experienced long COVID by late 2023, and socially disadvantaged adults were over 150% more likely to have persistent symptoms, two new studies find.
Yesterday in Communications Medicine, Daniel Kim, MD, DrPH, of Northeastern University, analyzed data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from September and November 2022 and August to October 2023 on more than 375,000 US adults, including nearly 50,000 with self-reported long COVID.
Kim assessed sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors as predictors of long COVID; estimated the risk of unemployment, financial difficulties, and anxiety and depression among working-age adults (ages 18 to 64 years) and those currently experiencing lingering symptoms; and tallied the economic effects of the resulting lost wages.
Comments closedResearchers have shown a new drug compound can prevent long COVID symptoms in mice – a landmark finding that could lead to a future treatment for the debilitating condition.
The world-first study found mice treated with the antiviral compound, developed by a multidisciplinary research team at WEHI, were protected from long term brain and lung dysfunction – key symptoms of long COVID.
Researchers hope the unprecedented results could lead to clinical trials and the first treatment for the disease in the future.
Comments closedStuffy, crowded classrooms mean kids are breathing in viruses and pollution. Parents are trying to make the air safer, but hitting roadblocks.
In September 2023, Heather Pun started sending her son to school with a carbon dioxide monitor. He was spending his days in a stuffy portable classroom, and she worried that COVID was being passed lung-to-lung through the stale air.
The device, which reads the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air, showed CO2 levels as high as 3,500 parts per million (ppm) in his classroom.
Comments closedNearly 2,000 doctors, researchers, and scientists have signed an open letter calling for an end to what they describe as the Trump administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science.”
The letter, written by 13 scientists from disciplines including medicine, climate science and economics, urges Americans to demand their Congress protect scientific funding and integrity.
The signatories, all members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, wrote that the Trump administration is “destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”
Comments closedThe Trump administration’s enormous cuts to a global AIDS relief program threaten to upend the planned rollout of a groundbreaking HIV prevention drug that was expected to save countless lives.
The medicine, lenacapavir, made by Gilead Sciences, has caused a stir because clinical trial data showed a single set of injections every six months could provide virtually complete protection against infection, a form of prevention known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or (PrEP). The drug, which is under regulatory review, has raised hopes that the deadly infectious disease can be mitigated around the globe. Early data for an even newer formulation suggest it might need to be given only once a year. “This is magical,” UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima declared last year.
Comments closedFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2025 (British Columbia) – BC patients and health advocates are speaking out against the provincial government’s decision to drop healthcare mask requirements, at a time when there are multiple illness outbreaks in medical settings. Public health groups DoNoHarm BC, Protect Our Province BC, and the Canadian Covid Society warn that the move endangers vulnerable patients and frontline workers, while harming the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of BC’s healthcare system.
Comments closedNew research findings provide solid evidence that annual COVID-19 vaccine booster doses continue to be advisable for certain immunocompromised people, researchers at McGill University say.
The researchers looked at how often people with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) got COVID-19 despite having received at least three doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. IMIDs – including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis – affect more than seven million Canadians. The medications they take often weaken their vaccine responses, increasing their vulnerability to infection.
Comments closedU.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on pharmaceuticals are likely to cause shortages of dozens of Canadian-made drugs in the United States, according to a new study.
Pharmaceuticals are one of a handful of sector-specific tariffs the President has talked publicly about imposing, along with ones already levied on steel, aluminum and autos. Mr. Trump has suggested tariffs could address high drug costs in the U.S. and increase domestic manufacturing.
New research published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at how many and what kind of Canadian-made drugs would be hit by the tariffs. It found US$3-billion in annual sales came from drugs with final production in Canada, which would lead to an increased cost of US$750-million for American buyers if tariffs were set at 25 per cent. Of the Canadian-made drugs, 79 per cent were generics.
Comments closedPreparations are underway for a limited spring COVID-19 vaccination program in Alberta.
Pharmacists say certain groups of high-risk Albertans will be eligible for a biannual dose of the KP.2 vaccine, starting April 28.
Eligible groups include seniors (aged 65 and older), all First Nations, Métis and Inuit people six months of age and older, immunocompromised Albertans six months and up, and adults living in care homes, according to Alberta’s updated immunization policy.
Comments closedThe provincial government has started offering COVID-19 booster doses to specific at-risk populations, as identified by the National Advisory on Immunization.
Eligible are all people age 65 and older, adult residents of long-term care homes and other congregate living settings for seniors, and people who are over six months old and are moderately to severely immunocompromised.
The vaccine will be available until June 1st.
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