EDMONTON – In a partial policy reversal, Alberta’s government said Tuesday it will cover the cost of COVID-19 vaccinations for health-care workers.
Maddison McKee, spokesperson to Primary and Preventative Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange, said in an email that COVID-19 vaccine coverage will be extended to all health-care workers this fall under the first phase of the province’s vaccination rollout.
“Immunization will remain voluntary,” said McKee.
Comments closedChoking smoke spewed by wildfires is far more dangerous than previously thought, a new study has found, with death tolls from short-term exposure to fine particulates underestimated by 93%.
Researchers found that 535 people in Europe died on average each year between 2004 and 2022 as a result of breathing in the tiny toxic particles known as PM2.5 that are released when wildfires rage.
Under standard methods, which assume PM2.5 from wildfires is as deadly as from other sources, such as traffic, they would have expected just 38 deaths a year.
Comments closedFor the first time in Quebec, a person has contracted Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a tick-borne disease that is potentially fatal, a doctor stated on Monday. The patient, recently infected in Estrie, has nevertheless responded well to treatment and has now recovered.
As milder temperatures favour the proliferation of ticks, we expect to see more and more cases in the coming years in Quebec, says Dr. Alex Carignan, infectious disease microbiologist and professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Sherbrooke. “It is concerning, because it is an infection with significant severity.”
The disease, which is treated with antibiotics, can lead to death if not properly managed. The first symptoms, which appear a few hours or days after a person is bitten, include a high fever, headache, muscle aches, and skin lesions in the form of small red spots.
Comments closedLP.8.1 variant adapted COVID-19 vaccine COMIRNATY is now authorized in Canada for individuals 6 months of age and older. It is expected to be available in Canada in the coming weeks.
KIRKLAND, QC, Aug. 18, 2025 /CNW/ – Pfizer Canada ULC and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) “BioNTech” announced today that Health Canada has authorized the LP.8.1 variant adapted COMIRNATY® COVID-19 vaccine for individuals aged 6 months and older. The updated COMIRNATY® vaccine targets the Omicron LP.8.1 variant, one of the most recently circulating SARS-CoV-2 lineages.
This season’s Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will be available in pharmacies across the country in the fall. The public program operates according to the eligibility criteria determined by each province. If an individual meets these criteria, they will be eligible to receive the vaccine for free.
Comments closedA Covid infection, particularly in women, may lead to blood vessels aging around five years, according to research published in the European Heart Journal [1]…
Comments closedIt has been more than five years since the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet innumerable Canadians are still living with the consequences months or even years after their initial infection.
Much remains unknown about long COVID, or Post COVID Condition (PCC), despite the ailment affecting millions of Canadians and leaving thousands out of work. But as research continues to develop, scientists have gleaned some pieces of the puzzle.
Here’s what we know so far about what long COVID is, why it happens and how to tell if you have it.
Comments closedEli Lilly said Thursday that it would increase the prices of medicines in Europe and other developed markets “in order to make them lower” in the U.S., an apparent response to the Trump administration’s calls to do so. It singled out the list price of its popular weight-loss drug in the U.K. as part of that effort.
The announcement is among the first moves by a major drugmaker to raise prices abroad in order to lower them in the U.S., in line with President Trump’s agenda. But it’s not clear if these actions would actually increase the amount of revenue that Lilly earns abroad, since governments and private providers that cover drugs often negotiate discounts off the list prices. Lilly did not immediately announce any new price reductions in the U.S.
Comments closedA grassroots organization of health professionals have released a report outlining major health challenges in the US and calling for the removal of Robert F Kennedy Jr from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The report from Defend Public Health, a new organization of about 3,000 health professionals and allies, is an attempt to get ahead of misinformation and lack of information from health officials.
In an effort to keep making progress in public health, Defend Public Health’s report was slated to coincide with that of the anticipated second US report to “make America healthy again” (Maha). The first Maha report was released in May, and a second report was expected this week – but amid turmoil at the health agencies, it has reportedly been delayed for several weeks.
Comments closedUpcoming changes to B.C.’s Medical Services Plan could affect how thousands of long-COVID patients access care.
Starting Sept. 1, MSP is capping all online group medical visits to just 20 patients, to “ensure there can still be a one-on-one interaction between each patient and the attending physician,” the Health Ministry told The Tyee.
Most long-COVID care in B.C. is currently delivered through large online group telehealth sessions from the Bowen Island-based BC Centre for Long COVID, ME/CFS, and Fibromyalgia, or BC-CLMF, which currently has over 5,200 patients — with 25 more referred every day, Dr. Ric Arseneau told The Tyee.
Comments closedGroundbreaking research led by a Swansea University academic has revealed a synthetic glycosystem — a sugar-coated polymer nanoparticle — that can block Covid-19 from infecting human cells, reducing infection rates by nearly 99%.
The glycosystem is a specially designed particle that mimics natural sugars found on human cells. These sugars, known as polysialosides, are made of repeating units of sialic acid — structures that viruses often target to begin infection. By copying this structure, the synthetic molecule acts as a decoy, binding to the virus’s spike protein and preventing it from attaching to real cells.
Unlike vaccines, which trigger immune responses, this molecule acts as a physical shield, offering a novel approach to infection prevention.
Comments closedTORONTO – Canadian doctors and scientists say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s defunding of mRNA vaccine research and development projects will have negative health effects in Canada and around the world.
“I think that Canadians do need to understand that this and a lot of the changes that Kennedy is making to vaccination policy in particular are definitely going to affect Canadians,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization.
Unlike other vaccines, mRNA vaccines can be made very quickly. They can also be easily modified to fight new viruses and adapt to changing strains — something that we saw as new variants emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rasmussen said.
Comments closedIn what experts say will hobble pandemic preparedness, US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday announced the dismantling of the country’s mRNA vaccine-development programs—the same innovation that allowed rapid scale-up of COVID-19 vaccines during the public health emergency.
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine-development contracts totaling just under $500 million, including an award to Moderna/University of Texas Medical Branch for a vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu now sweeping the world. That grant was terminated in late May.
Contracts awarded to Emory University and Tiba Biotech were cancelled, and agreements with Luminary Labs, ModeX, and Seqirus have been scaled back.
Comments closedCanada is at risk of losing its measles elimination status as an outbreak that started in New Brunswick last year continues to grow.
Measles has been considered eliminated in Canada since 1998, and the country saw an average of 91 cases annually before October 2024, when the outbreak began. The designation means that, within a certain geographical region, there has been no sustained measles transmission over 12 consecutive months.
Since then, of the 4,394 measles infections nationwide, Health Canada data shows that most individuals were exposed to the virus domestically (94 per cent) and were not vaccinated (88 per cent).
Comments closedPeople who breathe air polluted with large amounts of wildfire smoke visit hospital emergency rooms more often for respiratory symptoms, according to a Canadian emergency room physician and chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance.
Rates of heart attack and cardiac arrest also increase after a couple of days of exposure, Dr. Courtney Howard said.
“So don’t just attribute that feeling of heaviness in your chest to asthma,” said Howard, who works in Yellowknife and is president of the Northwest Territories Medical Association.
“If you have other risk factors for cardiovascular disease especially, go see your friendly local emergency department.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a statement Tuesday that 22 projects, totaling $500 million, to develop vaccines using mRNA technology will be halted.
Kennedy’s decision to terminate the projects is the latest in a string of decisions that have put the longtime vaccine critic’s doubts about shots into full effect at the nation’s health department. Kennedy has pulled back recommendations around the COVID-19 shots, fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations, and refused to offer a vigorous endorsement of vaccinations as a measles outbreak worsened.
Comments closedAlberta Premier Danielle Smith’s radical new rules for COVID immunization pose a genuine threat to the elderly, the working poor and pregnant moms.
Smith, who revived her ailing political career by peddling conspiratorial COVID theories, has designed a program that is not only punitive but discriminatory, bureaucratic and Soviet in nature.
“This policy is so bad that it’s actually worse than their usual failure to plan properly,” said James Talbot, the province’s former chief medical officer of health. “In fact, it is so bad it looks like they are actually planning to fail.”
Here are the three basic tenets of any successful public health program: make it available, make it accessible and make it affordable. Smith turns all three upside down.
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