Three children have died from flu-related complications in the Ottawa area this month, as officials warn of a “rapid and significant rise” in influenza A cases.
In a statement released Monday morning, Ottawa Public Health said three children between the ages of five and nine have died from influenza A-related complications in the Ottawa and Eastern Ontario Health Unit regions during the first two weeks of December.
Comments closedThe Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux (CISSS) de l’Outaouais has decided to reinstate mandatory mask wearing upon entry into its care facilities.
Starting on Tuesday, wearing a mask is mandatory in hospital centres, including the outpatient ward, the Pierre-Janet mental health hospital (including units 5 and 6 of the juvenile wing), the Physical rehabilitation centre, La RessourSe, residential and long-term care centres and seniors’ homes and alternative housing.
Comments closedAn early start to Canada’s flu season is hitting children hard, sending a flood of young patients into multiple pediatric hospitals as medical teams warn that emergency visits and admissions could keep climbing in the weeks ahead.
At CHEO, eastern Ontario’s children’s hospital in Ottawa, eight times more children tested positive for influenza in November compared with the same month in 2024, while double the number of children needed to be hospitalized. Most of those children hadn’t had a seasonal flu vaccine, according to CHEO’s emergency department team.
Comments closedA Washington state resident has tested positive for bird flu, marking the first human case confirmed in the U.S. in nine months.
The patient, who is an older adult with underlying health conditions, developed symptoms including high fever, confusion and respiratory distress and was hospitalized in early November, according to the Washington State Department of Health.
Testing confirmed the patient has H5N5, a strain of bird flu that has previously been reported in animals but never before in humans, according to the Washington State Department of Health. However, officials say the risk to the public is low.
Comments closedUniversity Health Network (UHN) has announced a new requirement for staff, patients and visitors to wear a mask when inside its facilities.
Masks must be worn in all UHN facilities, including Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre as of Tuesday, Nov. 18.
All staff, patients and visitors will be expected to wear a mask in physician offices, waiting rooms for clinics, the emergency department and other outpatient clinical areas. Patients and staff must also wear a mask when delivering or receiving direct care, or when staff are closely interacting with patients in inpatient, outpatient and emergency clinical areas.
Comments closedEarlier this month, a group of Canadian researchers published early influenza data for the 2025-26 season, issuing a warning: There has been an observed mismatch with the seasonal influenza vaccine strain and what is emerging as the dominant flu strain this season, H3N2 subclade K.
Based on early reports from Japan and the United Kingdom, the Canadian researchers wanted to publish these data to encourage enhanced surveillance in North America this season, especially given the tumultuous situation in the United States.
“This is not the time to be flying blind into the respiratory virus season,” Danuta Skowronski, MD, the epidemiology lead for influenza and emerging respiratory pathogens at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, told CIDRAP News. Skowronski was senior author of the paper, which was published in the Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada.
Comments closedThe risk of a heart attack triples within the first few weeks after a Covid-19 infection, the study suggested, and quadruples in the month after a flu infection. The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, was a large review and analysis of existing research.
“It endorses a general idea that we’ve been thinking about and talking about for the past several years — that infections are generally not benign,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a senior clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved in the study.
Comments closedOctober 28, 2025 (Ottawa): As Canada enters another respiratory virus season, pharmacists are urging Canadians to protect themselves and their communities as new polling shows vaccination intentions remain low.
According to a new national survey conducted by Abacus Data for the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA), 43% of Canadians plan to get their seasonal flu shot, and 29% intend to receive a COVID-19 vaccine this fall. Most concerning, nearly 4 in 10 Canadians (39%) say they don’t plan to get either vaccine.
Comments closedWalk-in clinics for the flu and Covid-19 vaccine open in Yellowknife later in October, the NWT’s health authority confirmed in a schedule issued late last week.
Comments closedLUCENA CITY — Citing a spike in influenza-like illnesses, Quezon Governor Angelina Tan has reinstated the mandatory wearing of face masks.
“Due to the increasing number of cases of illnesses such as colds, coughs, influenza-like illness, and severe respiratory infections like community-acquired pneumonia—and in accordance with Executive Order No. DHT-60—the wearing of face masks is hereby strictly mandated in all indoor settings, as well as in outdoor areas where physical distancing cannot be observed,” Tan, a medical doctor, said in a Facebook post on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 19.
Comments closedWhen a public building catches fire, its built-in systems automatically respond: Smoke alarms blare, sprinklers kick on, and occupants quickly evacuate.
But what if the life-threatening danger isn’t fire but invisible airborne contaminants that can make occupants sick? Could a similar smart-building system monitor and improve the quality of the air indoors, where Americans spend 90 percent of their time?
With a contract for up to $40 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an ambitious multi-institutional research team led by Virginia Tech and including researchers at the University of California, Davis, aims to create just such a system.
Comments closedAs respiratory illness season approaches, B.C. will begin rolling out its annual vaccination campaign for COVID-19 and influenza.
British Columbians began receiving notifications with a link to book vaccine appointments on Oct. 7 and they will continue to be sent out into November.
Appointments for both influenza and COVID-19 shots will begin on Oct. 14, starting with those at highest risk of severe illness.
Both vaccines are available for free for anyone older than six months.
Comments closedNova Scotia residents can now book appointments for the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines.
The Nova Scotia government says the free vaccines are recommended for everyone aged six months and older.
Nova Scotians can book an appointment with their family doctor, nurse practitioner or family practice nurse, or at their local pharmacy, public health office or mobile unit.
Comments closedQuebecers can now book their appointments as the province’s fall vaccination campaign is underway but unlike previous years the COVID-19 shot is no longer free for all.
Unless an individual is part of a high-risk group, the Association québécoise des pharmaciens propriétaires (AQPP) had said that the cost for a vaccine dose will range between $150 and $180.
The COVID-19 vaccine remains free of charge to:
Moderna’s Laval plant has delivered its first doses of messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines. The federal government hopes that the plant, which was built at a cost of $180 million with a $25 million investment from Quebec, will enable Canada to achieve pharmaceutical self-sufficiency.
“We will never find ourselves in this situation again,” said Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Mélanie Joly at a press conference on Friday, recalling that Canada had to rely on the United States, the European Union, and India for its vaccine supply during the pandemic.
“We are building a strong industrial capacity, a sovereign industrial capacity, which will ensure that we are not dependent on other countries for our vaccine production.”
Comments closedThe Ontario government has released its schedule for fall immunization programs as it encourages residents to get flu and COVID-19 vaccinations.
In a media release on Thursday, the province said free flu and COVID-19 shots will be available to Ontarians as of Oct. 27 at participating pharmacies, some public health units and doctor’s offices.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in the release that Ontario is working with health-care partners to ensure immunizations are available and accessible to all.
Comments closedThe bird flu virus that has beset dairy farms since early last year may be spreading through the air in so-called milking parlors and through contaminated wastewater, as well as from milking equipment, scientists have found.
The Department of Agriculture has said that the virus spreads primarily from milking equipment or is carried by dairy workers and vehicles traveling between farms.
But in the new study, scientists found live virus in the air of milking facilities, suggesting that cows and farmworkers might have become infected by inhaling the pathogen. The virus may also spread by water used to clean cattle barns or contaminated with discarded milk.
Comments closedHidden in the lungs of some breast cancer survivors are tumour cells that can remain dormant for decades — until they one day trigger a relapse. Now, experiments in mice show that these rogue cells can be roused from their slumber by common respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19 or the flu.
The findings, published in Nature on 30 July1, seem to extend to humans too: data from thousands of people show that infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is linked with a nearly twofold increase in cancer-related death, possibly helping to explain why cancer death rates increased early during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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