Tag: Public Health Agency of Canada

Published by: STAT
Published on: November 13, 2024
By Helen Branswell

A Canadian teenager who is in critical condition after contracting H5N1 bird flu was infected with a version of the virus that is different from the one circulating in dairy cattle in the United States, Canadian authorities announced Wednesday.

The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirmed the infection was indeed caused by the H5N1 virus. But genetic sequencing showed that it is of a genotype that has been found in wild birds, not the version that has been circulating in dairy cattle in the U.S.

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Ottawa-Gatineau

Ottawa’s wastewater surveillance program extended for another year

Published October 4, 2024

Published by: Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 4, 2024
By Elizabeth Payne

Two months after the Ontario government pulled the plug on wastewater surveillance, Ottawa health and research institutions have teamed up to extend the program in the city for a least another year.

Calling it an innovative solution that allowed for better monitoring of COVID-19 in the community, CHEO, the CHEO Research Institute, the University of Ottawa and Ottawa Public Health announced an extension of wastewater surveillance on Friday.

In addition to monitoring COVID-19 levels in wastewater, the program monitors levels of influenza, RSV and mpox in Ottawa. The program has been extended until September 2025.

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Ottawa-Gatineau

uOttawa, CHEO and OPH extend monitoring of viruses in wastewater to 2025

Published October 4, 2024

Published by: CTV News
Published on: October 4, 2024
By Ted Raymond

Our research group is truly grateful for the overwhelming support we’ve received from the community over the past few months through emails, letters, and phone calls advocating for the continuation of our wastewater monitoring system.

We’ve gained invaluable insights into how this information is essential for community members facing health challenges, and we are thrilled to continue providing this vital service. A heartfelt thank you to OPH, CHEO, and CHEO-RI for their unwavering support.

— Dr. Robert Delatolla

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vaccines

COVID-19 boosters start rolling out to some Canadians. Who can get them?

Published October 4, 2024

Published by: Global News
Published on: October 4, 2024
By Saba Aziz

Updated COVID-19 vaccines are starting to roll out to some high-risk Canadians, but others will have to wait a little while longer before these new shots are offered to them.

Last month, Health Canada approved Pfizer and Moderna’s latest COVID-19 vaccines targeting the most recent variants of the virus.

Both shots are approved for everyone aged six months and older.

The new mRNA vaccines from both pharmaceutical companies target the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron that was dominating COVID-19 spread earlier this year.

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vaccines

For Canadians seeking a non-mRNA COVID vaccine, lack of Novavax shot is ‘unfair,’ advocates say

Published October 3, 2024

Published by: CTV News / The Canadian Press
Published on: October 3, 2024
By Hannah Alberga, Nicole Ireland

The federal government’s decision to not provide Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine this respiratory virus season raises health equity concerns, experts and advocates say, as some Canadians look to the U.S. to get the shot.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said it won’t provide the protein-based vaccine called Nuvaxovid because the manufacturer required a minimum order that far exceeds last year’s uptake of the vaccine.

The health agency said 125,000 Nuvaxovid doses were ordered in 2023, but only 5,529 were administered. This fall, it will only supply provinces and territories with the reformulated Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

But some Canadians who say they are immunocompromised and have had adverse reactions to the mRNA vaccines are calling the decision unfair.

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vaccines

No good option: These Canadians want to be protected against COVID but are unhappy with the choice of vaccines this fall

Published September 13, 2024

Published by: Investigative Journalism Foundation
Published on: September 13, 2024
By Tori Marlan

The federal government has decided against procuring a protein-based COVID-19 vaccine for the fall immunization campaign — despite it being the only type that some immunocompromised people say they have been able to tolerate.

While the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna are effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization and death, some people with autoimmune diseases say the jabs can come with a terrible trade-off.

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Ontario: Contact councillors — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!

Image with dark blue background, and white and gold text. Text at the top reads: Ottawa, London, Waterloo Region. Save our early warning system for viruses. Below the text, there is a chart with red text reading: no data.

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Ontario: Contact councillors — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!

Published September 10, 2024

📣 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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vaccines

No Novavax COVID-19 vaccine in Canada this fall, immunocompromised N.B. woman feels ‘expendable’

Published September 6, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: September 6, 2024
By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon

Linda Wilhelm, 64, of Bloomfield, N.B., is planning a road trip to the United States. But it’s not to go sightseeing or shopping.

Wilhelm, who suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis, hopes to get the updated Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, which won’t be available in Canada as part of the fall vaccination campaign, unless provinces and territories order doses on their own.

Wilhelm, president of the Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance and a member of the Canadian Immunocompromised Advocacy Network, says the protein-based vaccine is a better option for immunocompromised people like her than the more common Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines. She says she feels “expendable” and urges the federal government to reconsider.

Less than two months ago, the network wrote to numerous federal, provincial and territorial officials, calling for improved access to Novavax and increased awareness.

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British Columbia

COVID shots available in B.C. until new vaccines arrive: province

Published September 5, 2024

Published by: CBC News / The Canadian Press
Published on: September 5, 2024

British Columbia says its current supply of COVID-19 vaccines will remain available until new formulations are approved — unlike other provinces that say they’re following a federal directive to destroy existing doses.

A spokesperson for the provincial health officer says B.C. residents are encouraged to wait for the updated COVID vaccines if possible, but people can still get last season’s shots if they need them.

Officials in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan and say they are following instructions from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to dispose of vaccine stocks that target the XBB.1.5 variant, since updated formulations are expected this fall.

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Novavax now! We need access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine!

Photo of two vials of a vaccine and a syringe, accompanied by white and gold text on a blue background reading: Novavax now! We need access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. StillCoviding.ca #NovavaxNow Photo: oasisamuel / Adobe.

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Novavax now! We need access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine!

Published August 25, 2024

📣 Let PHAC and health ministers know you want timely access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine this fall

✉️ Send letters to PHAC and health ministers to voice your support for access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine this fall. Use our online tool to send emails.

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data suppression

There’s a gaping hole in Canada’s COVID tracking

Published August 22, 2024

Published by: Toronto Star
Published on: August 22, 2024
By Iris Gorfinkel

The Government of Canada’s website tracks the number of hospitalizations and deaths from acute COVID-19. What it fails to include are the hospitalizations and deaths that result from COVID’s longer-term health consequences.

Even mild cases carry risk, but COVID most frequently wallops people after severe cases, especially when hospitalized. Of the nearly 300,000 Canadians hospitalized so far, over half likely have — or will — suffer life-changing health consequences, sometimes years after having recovered from the acute illness. These risks climb with repeated infections.

Hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are often delayed. Like high blood pressure, SARS CoV-2 can gradually damage the inner lining of blood vessels. This by itself, is painless. While it happens to people following mild cases of COVID, it’s far more likely after severe ones, especially after hospitalization. This doubles the downstream risk of having a heart attack, stroke or blood clot in the lung. It triples the risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm, including atrial fibrillation.

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The Risks of Killing a COVID Early Warning System

Photo of a person wearing an elastomeric respirator, with an outstretched, gloved hand reaching forward towards the viewer. On the light blue glove, the text reads: Stop COVID-19. With a bokeh effect, there is a sharp image of the glove, and the person’s face and respirator are blurred in the background. Photo: fernando zhiminaicela via Pixabay.

Ontario

The Risks of Killing a COVID Early Warning System

Published August 1, 2024

Published by: The Tyee
Published on: August 1, 2024
By Andrew Nikiforuk

COVID-19 is surging in parts of North America and Europe, and even played a role in ending the presidential campaign of 81-year-old Joe Biden, who was infected for the third time last month.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday the Ontario government shut down its early warning system to detect COVID and other emerging diseases.

Doctors, citizens and researchers are calling the decision to kill the province’s wastewater disease surveillance program both wrong-headed and dangerous. Ending the program will make it harder to track and thwart viral outbreaks, they say, and thereby increase the burden on Ontario’s understaffed hospitals, which experienced more than 1,000 emergency room closures last year.

“Pandemics do not end because science has been muzzled,” Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a well-known Toronto physician and clinical researcher, told the CBC.

In emails to politicians, more than 5,000 citizens have demanded restoration of the program, with little effect.

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Ontario

Ontario can’t make COVID-19 disappear by pretending it doesn’t exist

Published July 16, 2024

Published by: Toronto Star
Published on: July 16, 2024
By Iris Gorfinkel

Another blow to understanding the spread of COVID-19 is now slated to happen on July 31. That’s when funding ends for Ontario’s extensive wastewater surveillance program. It’s a technology that can detect viral particles up to seven days before people develop symptoms. It costs $15 million annually to check 58 sites throughout Ontario. But the cost of losing this hard-won technology is far greater. No longer having its data means that hospitals, long-term-care facilities, schools and communities will lose critical advanced warning of a potential outbreak. That gives them less time to prepare with masks, air filtration and vaccines.

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Ontario

‘Really unfortunate:’ Public health losing tool that tracks emerging threats in infectious diseases

Published July 2, 2024

Published by: NewmarketToday
Published on: July 2, 2024
By Joseph Quigley

York Region stands to lose reliability in its warning signs for population-wide COVID-19 and influenza cases as provincial wastewater surveillance ends, public health said.

The Ontario government announced it is ending the program, which allowed public health units to track COVID-19 in wastewater sampling sites across the province, on July 31.

York Region associate medical officer of health Dr. Sarah Erdman said the tool was very useful to help inform public health decisions.

“Given tighter testing eligibility for COVID-19 and influenza, wastewater surveillance provided helpful information about the burden of disease and community transmission among the general population,” Erdman said. “It also provided an early warning of surges ahead of an increase in cases and hospitalizations; without wastewater data, York Region will be unable to reliably obtain these estimates moving forward.”

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avian flu

Avian influenza in the United States closely monitored by authorities

Published June 30, 2024

Published by: Radio-Canada / The Canadian Press
Published on: June 30, 2024

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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Ontario

‘Dream tool’ being taken away by province, says public health doc

Published June 24, 2024

Published by: CollingwoodToday
Published on: June 24, 2024
By Erika Engel

News that the province is shutting down wastewater surveillance for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases has left Simcoe-Muskoka’s associate medical officer of health “disappointed.”

“It is really unfortunate because I think the rest of the world is certainly embracing this (science), so I’m not quite sure why they’re not continuing this very important infectious disease surveillance tool let alone for COVID, but also for influenza and other infections,” said Dr. Colin Lee from the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit.

The Ontario wastewater surveillance network that began in 2020 as a way to track COVID-19 in wastewater includes 59 sampling sites across Ontario, covering about 60 per cent of the province’s population.

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Ottawa-Gatineau

Ottawa Public Health seeking ways to continue wastewater testing

Published June 21, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: June 21, 2024
By Nathan Fung

Ottawa Public Health wants to collaborate with local partners to look for ways to continue wastewater monitoring after the province cuts funding to the program next month.

At its meeting this week, the city’s board of health passed a motion directing Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches to write to provincial and federal partners to find ways to continue the wastewater testing work that’s being done at the University of Ottawa.

Earlier this month, Ontario announced that by the end of July, it will scrap the program for sampling wastewater to monitor levels of COVID-19 in the population. The program began in 2020 and is funded through the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.

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Ontario

OSPN responds to Ontario’s cut of the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative

Published June 20, 2024

Published by: Ottawa Science Policy Network
Published on: June 20, 2024

The Ottawa Science Policy Network (OSPN) is concerned with the decision of the Ontario Government to cancel the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative (WSI) in Ontario. This cut of $15 million per year employs researchers, and offers significant returns for public health and safety.

The Wastewater Surveillance Initiative was adopted in January 2021 which led to a team of groundbreaking and internationally recognized work led by scientists at Ontario universities and research institutes. Ontario is a world leader in this field of wastewater research; tracking the impact of COVID-19 on communities through wastewater has helped shape public policy decisions and informed Ontarians of risks within the population. This funding not only provided the necessary means to track COVID-19 levels within the population but was further expanded to screen for Influenza, RSV, and M-Pox. Elizabeth Payne, a correspondent for Ottawa Citizen notes that wastewater surveillance at the start of seasonal RSV prevented 295 pediatric hospitalizations and 950 medically attended hospital visits, saving Ontario $3.5 million.

As of July 31st 2024 the Ontario government will no longer be investing in the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative, mentioning a key reason being that the Federal government will be expanding their program through the Public Health Agency of Canada. However, this leaves research groups and graduate students who rely on Ontario funding in a precarious position as the future of their funding remains uncertain.

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Tag: Public Health Agency of Canada

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📣 Let municipal councillors know you want funding for wastewater monitoring to continue

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📣 Let PHAC and health ministers know you want timely access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine this fall

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