British Columbia health officials are investigating what’s believed to be Canada’s first human case of avian influenza after a teenager tested presumptively positive for the disease, the Ministry of Health announced Saturday.
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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
Wastewater testing for avian influenza to begin in some Ontario communities
As bird flu infections continue to rise among livestock and humans in the United States, surveillance is ramping up in Canada.
Wastewater testing for the H5N1 bird flu virus is set to begin in the coming weeks in Ontario communities considered at high risk, said Rob Delatolla, whose University of Ottawa lab will lead the wastewater surveillance as part of a research program based at the University of Guelph. That will likely mean testing wastewater in communities in agricultural regions of the province. It is unclear whether there will also be testing in larger cities.
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CDC expands avian flu testing for farm workers, notes 7% infection rate in those exposed to infected cows
An eagerly anticipated serology study in farm workers exposed to H5N1-infected dairy cattle shows that 7% had antibodies suggesting prior infection, findings that today triggered enhanced testing, prophylactic (preventive) treatment, and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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H5N1 avian flu isolate from dairy worker is transmissible, lethal in animals
In experiments designed to learn more about the threat from the H5N1 avian flu virus spreading from cows to people, researchers found that an isolate from a sick dairy worker may be capable of replicating in human airway cells, is pathogenic in mice and ferrets, and can transmit among ferrets by respiratory droplets.
The team, based at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Japan, reported its findings today in Nature. Working in a high-containment lab, the researchers used an H5N1 isolate grown from the eye of a dairy worker who had experienced conjunctivitis after exposure to infected cows.
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Ontario: Contact councillors — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!
📣 Let municipal councillors know you want funding for wastewater monitoring to continue
✉️ Send letters to municipal councillors to voice your support for wastewater monitoring. Use our online tool to send emails.
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Ontario has a globally praised system for monitoring diseases through wastewater. So why is the province shutting it down?
For the past three years, Alexandra Johnston has started her work day by reaching for the pickaxe in the trunk of her car.
It is her tool of choice for prying open manhole covers – a task she demonstrated with practised ease last week while on a tour of her wastewater sampling regimen in Toronto.
Wearing a surgical mask and gloves, Ms. Johnston dragged the heavy cover aside, then grabbed hold of the fishing line secured underneath. After hauling up a few metres of line, she displayed her catch: a dripping wet tampon she had placed there the day before.
Her teammate, Claire Gibbs, quickly moved in with a prelabelled plastic bag to capture the sewage-laden sample. Using scissors, Ms. Gibbs deftly snipped the line, sealed the bag and stowed it away in the trunk as part of that day’s delivery.
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Avian influenza in the United States closely monitored by authorities
The rise in the number of cases of avian influenza on farms in the United States, the infection of cow herds and recent cases of transmission to human beings are of concern to Quebec and Canadian authorities, who say they are monitoring the situation very closely.
Avian influenza – specifically avian influenza of subtypes H5 and H7 – is a reportable disease in Quebec. Avian influenza is a zoonosis, meaning it can be transmitted from animals to humans.
Cases of avian influenza in humans remain very rare, but last spring three cases of human infection associated with infected dairy farms were reported in the United States. Two infected people had eye symptoms and the third person suffered a respiratory infection.
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Finland to start bird flu vaccinations for humans, in world first
Finland plans to offer preemptive bird flu vaccination as soon as next week to some workers with exposure to animals, health authorities said on Tuesday, making it the first country in the world to do so.
The Nordic country has bought vaccines for 10,000 people, each consisting of two injections, as part of a joint EU procurement of up to 40 million doses for 15 nations from manufacturer CSL Seqirus (CSL.AX).
The European Commission said Finland would be the first country to roll out the vaccine.
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Former director of the CDC predicts the next pandemic will be from bird flu
The former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, has said that the next pandemic could be from bird flu.
The World Health Organization recently announced the first human death from bird flu in Mexico, and the virus has been found in cattle across the US.
“I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield told NewsNation on Friday.
He added that the mortality rate is likely to be much higher from bird flu compared to Covid-19.
While the mortality rate was 0.6 per cent for Covid-19, Redfield said the mortality for the bird flu would probably be “somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent.”
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Cutting wastewater surveillance is short-sighted
Ontario to halt COVID wastewater surveillance program, June 4
The Ontario government’s plan to axe funding for wastewater surveillance is irresponsible. Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2, influenza and other viruses. Without funding, we will lose important information about the prevalence of these significant health concerns.
The timing of the announcement is astonishing. We are faced with an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and new hyper-infectious subvariants are spreading rapidly. We will be hindered in providing an early warning system to inform everyone about new subvariants and emerging pandemic threats such as avian flu.
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Ontario’s wastewater testing program to be replaced by a federal program that is significantly smaller
When Ontario’s wastewater surveillance program is shut down next month it will be replaced by a significantly smaller federal program. That potential information gap worries some researchers and public health experts, especially at a time when COVID-19 cases are starting to tick up and avian influenza is spreading rapidly.
Ontario’s wastewater testing initiative, considered a world leader, currently tests wastewater for signs of infectious diseases including COVID, influenza, RSV and more at 58 locations across the province. The provincial government plans to pull the plug on the program at the end of July, saying it wants to avoid duplication with an expanding pan-Canadian wastewater surveillance program.
That new federal program includes plans to conduct wastewater surveillance in five Ontario cities. Four of the five cities have not yet been selected.
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Ontario is a ‘world leader’ in wastewater surveillance for COVID. The province’s decision to close testing sites will end that, experts say
Researchers are warning that Ontario’s decision to shut down its wastewater surveillance program that proved crucial in tracking COVID-19 will limit the province’s ability to rapidly respond to infectious disease threats, including new COVID variants, respiratory viruses and bird flu.
A key member of the waterwater surveillance program says Ontario has been a “world leader and now we’ll probably be one of the passengers” by the scale-back that will also stifle research.
Cancelling the provincial surveillance system — the largest in Canada — will drastically reduce the number of testing sites in the province, experts say. They also caution that shuttering the program will mean that monitoring may no longer take place in smaller communities and in rural and northern areas, potentially missing vulnerable populations.
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Radio | Peterborough Medical Officer of Health frustrated with the province’s decision to pullback on waste water monitoring
Medical officer of health for Peterborough Public Health, Dr. Thomas Piggott talks with host Molly Thomas about why he believes we shouldn’t drop wastewater testing for diseases — even if COVID-19 is not the same threat it was when the program was rolled out.
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Radio | Ontario suspends wastewater testing in the province
The provincial government is suspending the program that tests for COVID-19, flu and disease levels in community sewage systems.
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‘I was shocked’: Ontario to cancel widely used wastewater surveillance program
The Ontario government is shutting down the wastewater surveillance program that has provided early warning for incoming waves of COVID-19 and a growing list of other infectious diseases since it was developed.
By the time it ends on July 31, the program that got its start in Ottawa early in the pandemic will be one of the biggest in the world to monitor the spread of infectious diseases through wastewater. Researchers were told of the decision to end funding last week.
Its closure comes at a time when COVID-19 is again beginning to spread through the world after a lull and when the United States and other countries are ramping up wastewater surveillance programs to warn about the possible spread of H5N1 avian influenza.
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Topic: take actionView all posts for the topic: take action
Ontario: Protect our health — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!
📣 Let MPPs know you want funding for Ontario’s wastewater monitoring program to continue
✉️ Send letters to MPPs to voice your support for wastewater monitoring. Use our online tool to send emails.
Why take action? Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in Ontario’s communities.
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