Health workers in personal protective equipment record COVID-19 nasal swab antigen test results in Bangkok on Thursday, a day in which Thailand reported its largest number of new daily coronavirus infections — more than 23,500 in total — since the start of the pandemic. (Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images)
Medicago’s homegrown, plant-based COVID-19 vaccine approved by Health Canada
Medicago’s plant-based COVID-19 vaccine is now approved by Health Canada, which will soon give Canadians the option of getting a homegrown shot against SARS-CoV-2.
In what the biopharmaceutical company calls a world first, the vaccine from Quebec City-based Medicago uses plant-derived, virus-like particles that resemble the coronavirus behind COVID-19 but don’t contain its genetic material. The shots also contain an adjuvant from British-American vaccine giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to help boost the immune response.
Dubbed “Covifenz,” the two-dose shot’s overall efficacy rate against all virus variants studied was 71 per cent, with a higher efficacy rate of 75 per cent against COVID-19 infections of any severity from the Delta variant, then dominant, according to data shared at the time in a news release. The results followed a global, Phase 3, placebo-controlled study of the two-dose vaccine that was launched last March and continued into a time period when the Delta variant was circulating.
The trial preceded the arrival of the highly contagious Omicron family of subvariants, including BA.1 and BA.2, although the company has said the vaccine can be adapted as needed.
“We will, in the next several months, know how well our vaccine did against Omicron,” the company’s medical officer, Dr. Brian Ward, told CBC News, citing ongoing company trials, which also include a study on a booster dose that’s slated to start within weeks.
Health Canada has recommended a three-week interval at minimum for the two-dose regimen, with typical, temporary potential side-effects seen with most other COVID-19 vaccines: a sore arm, headaches, joint and muscle pain and fever-like symptoms.
It’s not clear when production will be ramped up, but given Canada’s vaccination rates for adults — 84.5 per cent of the eligible population is considered fully vaccinated — it could eventually be employed more in the campaign to vaccinate underserved populations around the globe.
Without offering specifics, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer Dr. Howard Njoo said during a news conference that the federal government is “committed to the global effort to supply vaccines across the world.”
In the past, Medicago’s Ward has touted the benefits of transporting its vaccine around the world in comparison to some other products, which use yeast, insect or mammalian cells that need to be stored in glass containers called bioreactors. It also needs to be stored at manageable temperatures of 2 to 8 C.
What’s most hopeful, said Toronto-based infectious diseases expert Dr. Isaac Bogoch, is how plant-based technology could help future vaccine development.
“Is this going to have a major impact on us here in Canada? Probably not. But there might be some individuals who choose to get vaccinated with a non-mRNA product,” said Bogoch, referring to the shots offered by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
In a GSK news release in December, it was stated that there are plans to seek approval for the Medicago shots with the World Health Organization, as well as in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. It’s not clear if decisions in any of those cases are near.
From CBC News
Alberta wants to use private clinics to address surgery backlog
1 day ago
Duration 1:59
The Alberta government has proposed using private clinics to relieve pressure on the health-care system and clear surgical backlogs worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan would see up to 90,000 surgeries done at the private clinics but paid for by the province. 1:59
Reinfections from Omicron subvariant BA.2 seem rare, study finds, making ‘new wave’ unlikely
Out of nearly two million coronavirus infections logged in Denmark between mid-November and mid-February, researchers there zeroed in on those who tested positive twice between 20 and 60 days apart, and whose infections had gone through previous genomic surveillance and were labelled as a specific subvariant.
The team at Statens Serum Institut (SSI) found in a study published this week but not yet peer-reviewed only 187 cases of reinfection. That included 47 instances where Omicron subvariant BA.2 reinfections happened shortly after a BA.1 infection, “mostly in young unvaccinated individuals with mild disease not resulting in hospitalization or death,” the team wrote.
In other words, getting infected more than once by subvariants in the Omicron family does seem possible, but it appears to be not a common risk.
One of the researchers, Dr. Troels Lillebæk, chair of Denmark’s SARS-CoV-2 variant assessment committee, told CBC News this offers the first evidence of reinfections among members of the Omicron family, but it appears to be a “quite rare phenomenon.”
“If it was a major problem that you could catch BA.2 after BA.1, you could imagine a new wave,” he said. “This does not really point in that direction.”
The highly contagious BA.2 subvariant now makes up roughly nine in 10 cases in Denmark, with cases also rising in countries including Norway, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
Here in Canada, the subvariant was barely a blip in federal data by early January, but the latest-available data by month’s end suggest it makes up roughly one in 10 cases.
Some 1.25 million Canadians were infected with COVID-19 in December and January, according to CBC tracking of provincially released data, almost certainly an undercount as officials across the country stressed that the high transmissibility of Omicron was overwhelming case surveillance to a degree not seen in previous variants.
“So many people are vaccinated and boosted or have had BA.1 recently that they’re not very likely to be reinfected so quickly afterwards with BA.2,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO).
“We should start thinking about the next variant that’s going to come along rather than worrying so much about BA.2.”
Further to Rasmussen’s point, a recent New York Magazine article by science writer Jeff Wise expounded on the twists and turns involving COVID-19 variants over the course of two years.
“None of the variants of concern have led to the next variants of concern,” Emma Hodcroft, epidemiologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, told Wise.
Alberta expands vaccine access, encourages parents to get kids 5-to-11 inoculated
Alberta’s government is concerned about low COVID-19 vaccination rates for children and wants to push provincial numbers closer to the national average, Health Minister Jason Copping said Wednesday.
Copping told a news conference that Alberta’s government doesn’t have a “specific target” in mind for increasing childhood vaccination rates.
“But we would like to move closer [to] — and even achieve — the average across the country,” he said. The province has among the lowest vaccination rates for children in Canada. As of Monday, 47.1 per cent of Alberta children ages five to 11 have had one dose of vaccine, while 23.6 per cent of the same age group have had two doses.
That compares to vaccination rates of 56.11 per cent and 27.9 per cent respectively for Canadian children in the same age group, according to federal data from Feb. 13. The highest-ranking province is Newfoundland and Labrador, where 85.24 per cent of children ages five to 11 have had one dose and 40.27 per cent have had two.
Copping said surveys have previously shown “more reluctance” among parents in Alberta to get their children vaccinated, with many parents “taking a wait-and-see attitude,” he said. Other parents whose children have contracted COVID-19 during the Omicron wave are holding back on getting them vaccinated, Copping added.
In a bid to boost rates in Alberta children, the province has increased the availability of pediatric COVID-19 vaccines, making access widely available at pharmacies, physician offices and Alberta Health Services clinics, the minister said.
As stated in a newsletter last month, while there’s certainly room for Canada’s five-to-11 vaccination rate to grow, the uptake is not at all out of step for Western or developed countries using vaccines other than Chinese or Russian brands. In fact, Canada appears to be near the top in terms of vaccination pace along with countries such as Spain and Australia.
Canada’s pace is well ahead of countries such as the United States, Israel, France, Italy and Denmark.
Britain, Norway and Sweden — all countries moving into a non-emergency phase of “living with COVID” — are not vaccinating children that young en masse, although there are some exceptions for ill or immunocompromised kids. Meanwhile, Japan won’t start their campaign for that age cohort until next week.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
