The 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 closedAlthough COVID-19 no longer makes daily headlines, some are on a mission to spread awareness about the impact the virus is still having on the community.
The University of Waterloo hosted a silent walk on Thursday to raise awareness about the condition known as Long COVID – when the impact of an infection is still being experienced months after the fact.
Those who have or had Long COVID, and supporters of loved ones with it, were among those on hand.
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 closedOttawa Public Health has begun monitoring wastewater for evidence of measles in the city as the highly infectious disease continues to surge throughout Ontario.
That makes Ottawa one of the only communities in the province and across Canada using wastewater as a possible early warning signal for measles. Ottawa Public Health says the tool is promising for detecting measles, but the research is limited and “many unknowns remain”.
There have been no cases in Ottawa so far this year but Dr. Gregory Rose, who is director of infection prevention and control at Queensway Carleton Hospital, warns that it is only a matter of time.
Comments closedAs Canada deals with its largest measles outbreak in more than a decade, health experts say a COVID-era tool could help tame the spread.
Wastewater surveillance, which involves testing sewage samples for viral pathogens, became essential during the pandemic. The data helped overwhelmed health officials map out COVID-19’s path and better predict the trajectory of cases.
At the time, it was praised as a critical public health tool that could serve as a warning system to keep Canadians safe from future harmful infections. And as the current measles outbreak surpasses 500 cases in Canada, experts say this is the moment where leaning into regional wastewater surveillance would be most helpful.
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.
After more than a decade practicing emergency medicine in the United States, I very recently began working shifts in Canada. The differences hit me immediately, and are profound.
What follows are a series of working hypotheses — early impressions shaped by firsthand experience and years of health policy work in the U.S. I expect they will evolve with time, but they already point to important contrasts in how both countries approach medicine, physician autonomy, and the doctor-patient relationship.
Comments closedCOVID-19 vaccination reduced the risk of developing ‘long COVID’ by approximately 27% in adults fully vaccinated before infection, according to a literature review carried out…
Comments closedThe Trump administration is shuttering HHS’ long Covid office as part of its reorganization, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO.
The email was sent Monday by Ian Simon, the head of the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice. It said the closing is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ reorganization.
Comments closedNova 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 closedThe UNAIDS program head has said millions more will die as a result of the sudden cuts to funding by the Trump administration. She also warned that the AIDS pandemic could return to 1990s levels.
The head of the United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, said on Monday that over 6 million additional deaths from the disease are expected after the US slashed its funding.
Comments closedCOVID may no longer be considered an official global emergency, but mounting scientific evidence suggests every COVID infection a person gets increases their risk of developing long-term health issues.
“There is no such thing as a COVID infection without consequence,” says long COVID researcher, David Putrino, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The long-term effects can show up as long COVID, with symptoms such as shortness of breath, digestive problems, fast or irregular heartbeats, extreme fatigue and brain fog, or as silently accumulating cellular or organ damage.
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 closedPeople who later experienced persistent shortness of breath or fatigue after a COVID infection were already taking significantly fewer steps per day and had a higher resting heart rate before contracting the virus, according to a CSH study published in npj Digital Medicine. This may indicate lower fitness levels or pre-existing conditions as potential risk factors
Between April 2020 and December 2022, over 535,000 people in Germany downloaded and activated the Corona Data Donation App (CDA). Of these, more than 120,000 voluntarily shared daily data from their smartwatches and fitness trackers with researchers, providing insights into vital functions such as resting heart rate and step count.
“These high-resolution data served as the starting point for our study,” explains CSH researcher Katharina Ledebur. “We were able to compare vital signs in 15-minute intervals before, during, and after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
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