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COVID-19 vaccine uptake for young Ontario children lower than experts had expected – Cornwall Seaway News

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TORONTO — The number of children under the age of five getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Ontario is even lower than the relatively small numbers many experts had expected.

Shots for the youngest age group have been available for two months, but only about six per cent of those kids have had their first dose.

Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said that is lower than the numbers he thought he would see by this point.

“I certainly want more families to consider immunizing their children from six months to four years of age,” in particular, children at high risk, he said in an interview. 

“We know we have a higher percentage than five per cent of children with an underlying medical illness that may predispose them to having a worse outcome associated with COVID and would absolutely encourage those parents to consider having a conversation with your health-care provider regarding the risks and benefits.”

Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and associate professor in the faculty of health sciences at the University of Ottawa, said there are a lot of factors at play that likely feed into a low uptake, but he still would have expected a higher number by now.

“I’m not surprised it’s low, I’m surprised it’s this low,” he said.

Many people believe false narratives that the pandemic is over and that kids don’t get sick when they’re infected with COVID-19, said Deonandan, who also pointed to misinformation about side-effects of the vaccine.

The way that messages about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine get communicated to parents matters, Deonandan said.

“This must be couched as, ‘Parents, this is your decision to make and I want to give you all of the transparent information I can so that you make a good choice here,’” he said.

“It’s a delicate balancing act here that we have to do when talking about this. You don’t want to come across as forcing a foreign thing into your child’s body, as we see the population is very sensitive to that kind of narrative. We don’t want to come across as being fearmongers trying to force the world back into lockdown …. But at the same time, you just want to advocate for overall child health.”

The City of Toronto pulled a series of videos this week about COVID-19 vaccinations for children after one implied kids couldn’t go out to play with friends if they were unvaccinated. 

“This video missed the mark on that message and should not have been posted,” spokesperson Brad Ross wrote in a statement. 

“A series of five videos directed at parents and caregivers about children’s vaccines has been paused while each is reviewed to ensure the messages are clear and unambiguous: vaccines are available for children and they are safe.” 

Pediatricians are who parents should listen to right now, Deonandan said.  

“No one trusts the epidemiologists anymore,” he said. “They don’t trust the government doctors anymore. No one trusts the virologists anymore. They only trust their child’s pediatrician, and that’s the people who have to have this conversation.”

Moore said the province is hearing from parents that one-on-one conversations are the most effective communication tool.

“When you’re visiting your primary care provider, your pediatrician, you’re getting your standard immunizations at two months, four months, six months, 12, 15, 18 months — all of those are opportunities for families to ask questions about COVID vaccination,” he said.

“We have work to do to continue our (official) message. It will accelerate as we head into indoors and head into the fall as we perceive the risk of transmission will increase.”

Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, the medical officer of health for the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, said he hopes vaccination for young children will speed up through the fall, as he had anticipated an overall uptake of about 25 to 30 per cent.

He attributed the slow start to the rollout kicking off during the summer, misinformation circulating about the vaccine, as well as a general hesitancy from parents when it comes to children of that age.

“I’m a pediatrician, I know that parents are always hesitant – particularly for younger children and babies – be it a vaccination, or any medication that comes out,” he said.

“One of the messages that we need to tell people is that although that vaccine is not as effective as we’d like to be for person-to-person transmission, it’s certainly highly effective against severe disease and complications thereof.”

Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatrician, infectious disease specialist and associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said there is also a complacency factor.

“(People think), ‘Oh COVID’s not so bad. It’s just a mild cold in young kids, I don’t really need to worry about it,’” she said. 

“There’s a lot of, I think, denial that kids, especially younger kids, can get it and get very, very seriously sick with that.”

Public Health Ontario said in its most recent report that there was a notable increase in hospitalizations for infants under one year old, with 17 children for the week of Sept. 4 to Sept. 10 compared to eight the week prior. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 1,268 kids in that age group have been hospitalized for COVID-19 – a much higher rate than for older children and teenagers.

Kids have a fairly good chance of catching COVID-19 now that schools are back in session, and it’s not just the immediate and possible long-term effects on the young children themselves that parents should keep in mind, Banerji said. 

“(They) also can spread it to other kids, can spread it at home, can spread it to grandparents,” she said.

“It’s something that could significantly impact someone’s life. And so I would do what you can to reduce the risk of transmission, which is really vaccination.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2022.

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Health Canada approves updated Moderna COVID-19 vaccine

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TORONTO – Health Canada has authorized Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccine that protects against currently circulating variants of the virus.

The mRNA vaccine, called Spikevax, has been reformulated to target the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron.

It will replace the previous version of the vaccine that was released a year ago, which targeted the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.

Health Canada recently asked provinces and territories to get rid of their older COVID-19 vaccines to ensure the most current vaccine will be used during this fall’s respiratory virus season.

Health Canada is also reviewing two other updated COVID-19 vaccines but has not yet authorized them.

They are Pfizer’s Comirnaty, which is also an mRNA vaccine, as well as Novavax’s protein-based vaccine.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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These people say they got listeria after drinking recalled plant-based milks

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TORONTO – Sanniah Jabeen holds a sonogram of the unborn baby she lost after contracting listeria last December. Beneath, it says “love at first sight.”

Jabeen says she believes she and her baby were poisoned by a listeria outbreak linked to some plant-based milks and wants answers. An investigation continues into the recall declared July 8 of several Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages.

“I don’t even have the words. I’m still processing that,” Jabeen says of her loss. She was 18 weeks pregnant when she went into preterm labour.

The first infection linked to the recall was traced back to August 2023. One year later on Aug. 12, 2024, the Public Health Agency of Canada said three people had died and 20 were infected.

The number of cases is likely much higher, says Lawrence Goodridge, Canada Research Chair in foodborne pathogen dynamics at the University of Guelph: “For every person known, generally speaking, there’s typically 20 to 25 or maybe 30 people that are unknown.”

The case count has remained unchanged over the last month, but the Public Health Agency of Canada says it won’t declare the outbreak over until early October because of listeria’s 70-day incubation period and the reporting delays that accompany it.

Danone Canada’s head of communications said in an email Wednesday that the company is still investigating the “root cause” of the outbreak, which has been linked to a production line at a Pickering, Ont., packaging facility.

Pregnant people, adults over 60, and those with weakened immune systems are most at risk of becoming sick with severe listeriosis. If the infection spreads to an unborn baby, Health Canada says it can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth or life-threatening illness in a newborn.

The Canadian Press spoke to 10 people, from the parents of a toddler to an 89-year-old senior, who say they became sick with listeria after drinking from cartons of plant-based milk stamped with the recalled product code. Here’s a look at some of their experiences.

Sanniah Jabeen, 32, Toronto

Jabeen says she regularly drank Silk oat and almond milk in smoothies while pregnant, and began vomiting seven times a day and shivering at night in December 2023. She had “the worst headache of (her) life” when she went to the emergency room on Dec. 15.

“I just wasn’t functioning like a normal human being,” Jabeen says.

Told she was dehydrated, Jabeen was given fluids and a blood test and sent home. Four days later, she returned to hospital.

“They told me that since you’re 18 weeks, there’s nothing you can do to save your baby,” says Jabeen, who moved to Toronto from Pakistan five years ago.

Jabeen later learned she had listeriosis and an autopsy revealed her baby was infected, too.

“It broke my heart to read that report because I was just imagining my baby drinking poisoned amniotic fluid inside of me. The womb is a place where your baby is supposed to be the safest,” Jabeen said.

Jabeen’s case is likely not included in PHAC’s count. Jabeen says she was called by Health Canada and asked what dairy and fresh produce she ate – foods more commonly associated with listeria – but not asked about plant-based beverages.

She’s pregnant again, and is due in several months. At first, she was scared to eat, not knowing what caused the infection during her last pregnancy.

“Ever since I learned about the almond, oat milk situation, I’ve been feeling a bit better knowing that it wasn’t something that I did. It was something else that caused it. It wasn’t my fault,” Jabeen said.

She’s since joined a proposed class action lawsuit launched by LPC Avocates against the manufacturers and sellers of Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages. The lawsuit has not yet been certified by a judge.

Natalie Grant and her seven year-old daughter, Bowmanville, Ont.

Natalie Grant says she was in a hospital waiting room when she saw a television news report about the recall. She wondered if the dark chocolate almond milk her daughter drank daily was contaminated.

She had brought the girl to hospital because she was vomiting every half hour, constantly on the toilet with diarrhea, and had severe pain in her abdomen.

“I’m definitely thinking that this is a pretty solid chance that she’s got listeria at this point because I knew she had all the symptoms,” Grant says of seeing the news report.

Once her daughter could hold fluids, they went home and Grant cross-checked the recalled product code – 7825 – with the one on her carton. They matched.

“I called the emerg and I said I’m pretty confident she’s been exposed,” Grant said. She was told to return to the hospital if her daughter’s symptoms worsened. An hour and a half later, her fever spiked, the vomiting returned, her face flushed and her energy plummeted.

Grant says they were sent to a hospital in Ajax, Ont. and stayed two weeks while her daughter received antibiotics four times a day until she was discharged July 23.

“Knowing that my little one was just so affected and how it affected us as a family alone, there’s a bitterness left behind,” Grant said. She’s also joined the proposed class action.

Thelma Feldman, 89, Toronto

Thelma Feldman says she regularly taught yoga to friends in her condo building before getting sickened by listeria on July 2. Now, she has a walker and her body aches. She has headaches and digestive problems.

“I’m kind of depressed,” she says.

“It’s caused me a lot of physical and emotional pain.”

Much of the early days of her illness are a blur. She knows she boarded an ambulance with profuse diarrhea on July 2 and spent five days at North York General Hospital. Afterwards, she remembers Health Canada officials entering her apartment and removing Silk almond milk from her fridge, and volunteers from a community organization giving her sponge baths.

“At my age, 89, I’m not a kid anymore and healing takes longer,” Feldman says.

“I don’t even feel like being with people. I just sit at home.”

Jasmine Jiles and three-year-old Max, Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, Que.

Jasmine Jiles says her three-year-old son Max came down with flu-like symptoms and cradled his ears in what she interpreted as a sign of pain, like the one pounding in her own head, around early July.

When Jiles heard about the recall soon after, she called Danone Canada, the plant-based milk manufacturer, to find out if their Silk coconut milk was in the contaminated batch. It was, she says.

“My son is very small, he’s very young, so I asked what we do in terms of overall monitoring and she said someone from the company would get in touch within 24 to 48 hours,” Jiles says from a First Nations reserve near Montreal.

“I never got a call back. I never got an email”

At home, her son’s fever broke after three days, but gas pains stuck with him, she says. It took a couple weeks for him to get back to normal.

“In hindsight, I should have taken him (to the hospital) but we just tried to see if we could nurse him at home because wait times are pretty extreme,” Jiles says, “and I don’t have child care at the moment.”

Joseph Desmond, 50, Sydney, N.S.

Joseph Desmond says he suffered a seizure and fell off his sofa on July 9. He went to the emergency room, where they ran an electroencephalogram (EEG) test, and then returned home. Within hours, he had a second seizure and went back to hospital.

His third seizure happened the next morning while walking to the nurse’s station.

In severe cases of listeriosis, bacteria can spread to the central nervous system and cause seizures, according to Health Canada.

“The last two months have really been a nightmare,” says Desmond, who has joined the proposed lawsuit.

When he returned home from the hospital, his daughter took a carton of Silk dark chocolate almond milk out of the fridge and asked if he had heard about the recall. By that point, Desmond says he was on his second two-litre carton after finishing the first in June.

“It was pretty scary. Terrifying. I honestly thought I was going to die.”

Cheryl McCombe, 63, Haliburton, Ont.

The morning after suffering a second episode of vomiting, feverish sweats and diarrhea in the middle of the night in early July, Cheryl McCombe scrolled through the news on her phone and came across the recall.

A few years earlier, McCombe says she started drinking plant-based milks because it seemed like a healthier choice to splash in her morning coffee. On June 30, she bought two cartons of Silk cashew almond milk.

“It was on the (recall) list. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I got listeria,’” McCombe says. She called her doctor’s office and visited an urgent care clinic hoping to get tested and confirm her suspicion, but she says, “I was basically shut down at the door.”

Public Health Ontario does not recommend listeria testing for infected individuals with mild symptoms unless they are at risk of developing severe illness, such as people who are immunocompromised, elderly, pregnant or newborn.

“No wonder they couldn’t connect the dots,” she adds, referencing that it took close to a year for public health officials to find the source of the outbreak.

“I am a woman in my 60s and sometimes these signs are of, you know, when you’re vomiting and things like that, it can be a sign in women of a bigger issue,” McCombe says. She was seeking confirmation that wasn’t the case.

Disappointed, with her stomach still feeling off, she says she decided to boost her gut health with probiotics. After a couple weeks she started to feel like herself.

But since then, McCombe says, “I’m back on Kawartha Dairy cream in my coffee.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

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B.C. mayors seek ‘immediate action’ from federal government on mental health crisis

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VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.

The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.

Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”

Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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