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 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 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 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.
Comments closedRespiratory illness season is over, British Columbia’s top doctor said Friday, but the province is set to launch a spring COVID-19 immunization campaign and wants everyone to ensure they’re fully protected against measles.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said B.C.’s COVID-19 hospitalizations have hit the lowest level since 2020, with about 40 people in hospital, while cases of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, have also been declining.
Still, Henry said there have been resurgences in spring and summer in the past, and the province is focused on protecting people at the highest risk of serious illness.
Comments closedParis (AFP) – The United States cutting funding to Gavi, an organisation that provides vaccines to the world’s poorest countries, could result in more than a million deaths and will endanger lives everywhere, the group’s CEO warned on Thursday.
The news that Washington is planning to end funding for Gavi, first reported in the New York Times, comes as the two-month-old administration of President Donald Trump aggressively slashes foreign aid.
Comments closedThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pulling back $11.4 billion in funds allocated in response to the pandemic to state and community health departments, nongovernment organizations and international recipients, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” HHS Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement. “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
HHS oversees 13 agencies, including the CDC, which is tasked with protecting the nation’s health. Notices began going out Monday, and awardees have 30 days to reconcile their expenditures. Figures are subject to change.
Nova Scotians and New Brunswickers at the highest risk for severe illness from a COVID-19 infection can now book an appointment for a spring vaccine.
The dose will be available from March 31 to June 30 in Nova Scotia. Children aged six months to 11 years can get the vaccine until June 17.
The New Brunswick spring campaign will run from April 7 to June 30. People will be able to book appointments starting March 28. For children under the age of 12, the vaccine will be available until June 21.
Nova Scotia says it is following recommendations from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization for the spring dose.
Comments closedThere’s been another sharp increase in Ontario measles cases as the province begins to release weekly reports on the infectious disease.
Public Health Ontario is reporting 470 measles cases since an outbreak began in October. That’s an increase of 120 cases since March 14.
The spread resulted in 34 hospitalizations, including two people who needed intensive care. Most of those hospitalized were unvaccinated kids, including one of the intensive care patients.
The outbreak expansion adds to the growing concern of rising measles cases in different parts of the country, including in Quebec where there are 40 cases and Alberta where there are 13, according to the latest data.
Comments closedIn a Swedish cohort, the risk of long COVID was much lower for vaccinated than unvaccinated participants in the year after infection, even when restricting the analyses to subgroups based on variant, age, sex, and previous infection status, estimates a study published last week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Karolinska Institutet researchers in Stockholm analyzed data from five registries to compare rates of persistent COVID-19 symptoms, or post-COVID condition [PCC], in adults infected from January 2021 to February 2022 by vaccination status in the 14 days before infection. Follow-up was 365 to 660 days.
Comments closedIn Gaines County, Texas, where a measles outbreak has killed one six-year-old and one adult, the measles vaccination rate among kindergarteners is just 82 per cent, according to reporting by The Atlantic.
That’s a higher measles vaccination rate than children have here in B.C.
Just under 82 per cent of two-year-olds have gotten one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine, and around 72 per cent of seven-year-olds have gotten both doses, according to the B.C. Childhood Immunization Coverage Dashboard’s 2023 data, which is the most recent data year available.
Comments closedThe federal government has cancelled a deal with vaccine maker Novavax to manufacture COVID-19 vaccine in Montreal, the company said in a filing with the U.S. securities regulator.
Novavax told the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Canadian government cancelled the deal March 7 after the company failed to meet a Dec. 31, 2024 deadline to get regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine using ingredients made at the federally-owned Biologics Manufacturing Centre in Montreal.
Researchers at McMaster University have started a phase-2 clinical trial on a next-generation, inhaled COVID-19 vaccine.
The AeroVax study, supported by $8M in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), will test needle-free vaccines developed to provide protection from SARS-CoV-2.
Led by Fiona Smaill and Zhou Xing, members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) at McMaster, the multi-centre trial will evaluate the new vaccine in a broad study group, while also confirming safety.
Comments closedThe measles epidemic continues in Quebec. The province has reached 30 cases, according to the most recent figures from Public Health.
The Laurentides region remains the most affected with 27 cases of measles, the others being in the territories of Montreal, Laval and Montérégie.
Comments closedThis is a corrected story. A previous version from The Canadian Press erroneously reported that there were 84 new measles cases reported in Ontario over the last two weeks when in fact there were 78.
Ontario is reporting 78 new measles cases over the last two weeks, nearly doubling the province’s total count since an outbreak started in the autumn.
Comments closedLUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A child who wasn’t vaccinated died in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas, state officials said Wednesday, the first U.S. death from the highly contagious — but preventable — respiratory disease since 2015.
The school-aged child had been hospitalized and died Tuesday night amid the widespread outbreak, Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years. Since it began last month, a rash of 124 cases has erupted across nine counties.
The Texas Department of State Health Services and Lubbock health officials confirmed the death to The Associated Press. The child wasn’t identified but was treated at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, though the facility noted the patient didn’t live in Lubbock County.
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