TORONTO —
Saturday’s announcement that Health Canada has given the green light to a clinical trial for a potential COVID-19 vaccine is welcome news, but there is still a long way to go before any possible treatment becomes a reality.
“Under normal conditions, those types of studies … can take five to seven years. It’s a very long process,” Dr. Scott Halperin told CTV News Channel on Sunday.
Halperin is the director of the Canadian Center for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, which has been approved to begin trials of the vaccine candidate known as Ad5-nCoV.
He said that due to the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, his team will carry out tests “in a more accelerated fashion, without sacrificing any safety,” by not waiting for full results from one stage of their research before moving on to the next.
“What we want to do is find a vaccine that’s well-tolerated by individuals, and that has a good immune response – and then make sure that it works,” he said.
Like most clinical trials, this one will be carried out in three phases.
In the first phase, which Halperin said will require up to 100 volunteer participants, the researchers’ focus will be less about how the vaccine candidate fights the virus than how humans respond to it in general.
“Volunteers will receive a dose of the vaccine, and they’ll be monitored very closely to see the safety of the vaccine, how well it’s tolerated and whether it generates a good immune response to the vaccine,” Halperin said.
The volunteers, who in this phase will all be between the ages of 18 and 55, will be given a dose of the vaccine and regular blood tests to track their progress over a six-month period. They will also have to keep track of and record any symptoms they may exhibit.
If preliminary data suggests the potential vaccine is safe for humans, the test will move into its second phase, for which hundreds more volunteers of all ages will be needed, without waiting for the full six-month testing period to finish.
These volunteers will still be watched closely for any signs that the vaccine candidate may not be as safe as believed – but there will also be more attention paid to exactly how the body responds to it, such as whether it generates an antibody.
The third and final phase will be the largest of all, requiring thousands of volunteers. It will aim squarely at the biggest question of all: Does the vaccine candidate prevent COVID-19 infection?
“The vaccine is given, and then we wait to see whether people who, when they come in contact with the virus under natural conditions, whether they’re protected compared to somebody who just received a placebo immunization,” Halperin said.
The Dalhousie team won’t only be relying on their own results as they investigate the potential vaccine. Ad5-nCoV was developed in China, where human trials have already entered the second phase. CanSino Biologics, the Chinese company behind the vaccine candidate, has been working with the Canadian government to bring the Canadian trial to fruition.
Jason Kindrachuk, an expert in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, described Saturday’s announcement as “amazingly exciting news,” especially as it is still unknown what toll the novel coronavirus may take on the human body over the long-term.
“We are still in such a big learning phase right now,” he told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
“If we get to a point where we find out that protection doesn’t last for years … the vaccine is what we’re going to rely on to defeat this virus.”
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.
