Health
Alberta health officials must determine ‘largest factor’ fuelling new COVID-19 cases to slow spread
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As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Alberta, so too does the number of cases that have an unknown source of exposure — meaning officials can’t pinpoint where the person came in contact with the novel coronavirus.
From Oct. 27 to Nov. 2, 67 per cent of the new cases confirmed had an unknown source, according to the Alberta Health website.
And of the province’s 6,110 active cases reported Tuesday, 53 per cent of those also had an unknown exposure, the website showed. No new data on Wednesday’s causes of exposure were available as of time of publishing on Wednesday.
According to chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the unknown exposure percentage of active cases that Alberta Health is working with is significantly lower, at roughly 40 per cent. She said Wednesday that’s because a public health investigation, including contact tracing, hasn’t happened yet, adding that in “many of those cases, we will be able to determine the source.”
Hinshaw called the number of cases where officials don’t know where the virus came from is “concerning.”
“We do know what the trends are in our own data and those trends match the transmission issues that we’re seeing in other provinces, which are social gatherings — they are times when people are spending time together in close contact, not wearing masks, not using distancing.
“The issues happen when individuals perhaps are not staying home when they’re symptomatic.”
Dr. Vanessa Meier-Stephenson, infectious disease physician and virologist at the University of Calgary, said the high number of cases with unknown sources makes for a “higher risk for potentially contracting the virus from various day-to-day activities.”
“It really does make it hard to implement the measures that would be necessary to quell that fire,” she said.
“The thing is, if we know it’s only occurring in groups, we can focus on trying to encourage people to stop having larger group gatherings.
If it’s only occurring in schools, then we can revisit what we’re doing at that. But that’s not the case.”
More virus in community leads to ‘increased risk for everybody’
The Alberta government last month introduced new mandatory restrictions on social gatherings in Calgary and Edmonton, limiting them to 15 people, however, it takes about two weeks to see whether those new measures have had an impact.
Premier Jason Kenney said Wednesday if the “significant wave” in cases doesn’t slow down, “they will pose a very serious challenge to the ability of our health care system to cope.”
“If the current trends continue, we’re going to have to move more people out of acute care beds, delay more surgeries and those actions will have negative downstream health consequences which we want to avoid,” Kenney said.
Meier-Stephenson said without knowing whether it’s truly gatherings that are causing the spikes in case numbers, it’s hard to know whether the restrictions will work and whether more robust ones should be enforced.
“The challenge for public health is to identify: what is the largest factor that’s contributing to these numbers?”
“The fact that we have more people with the virus in the community means… [for] every extra person, there’s that extra potential for another surface, another interaction to include the virus in there,” she said. “So it does it does make it to an increased risk for everybody.”
Meier-Stephenson said people need to get back to the basics of preventative health measures including hand-washing, wearing masks and most importantly, staying home when feeling sick and keeping groups small.
“I’m certain that any of us could could think back in the past several days or weeks — are there times when we let our guard down, we let things slip?” she said.
“We need to revisit that and and really pay attention to kind of what we’re doing with each of these measures.”
Meier-Stephenson admitted it’s “hard to keep that message at that intensity for so long,” adding that many people are feeling fatigued about the precautions and pandemic overall.
Source:- Global News
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Grande Prairie RCMP issued a warning Friday after it was revealed fentanyl linked to a deadly overdose was mixed with a chemical that doesn’t respond to naloxone treatment.
The drugs were initially seized on Feb. 28 after a fatal overdose, and this week, Health Canada reported back to Mounties that the fentanyl had been mixed with Bromazolam, which is a benzodiazepine.
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Mounties say this is the first recorded instance of Bromazolam in Alberta. The drug has previously been linked to nine fatal overdoses in New Brunswick in 2022.
The pills seized in Alberta were oval-shaped and stamped with “20” and “SS,” though Mounties say it can come in other forms.
Naloxone treatment, given in many cases of opioid toxicity, is not effective in reversing the effects of Bromazalam, Mounties said, and therefore, any fentanyl mixed with the benzodiazepine “would see a reduced effectiveness of naloxone, requiring the use of additional doses and may still result in a fatality.”
From January to November of last year, there were 1,706 opioid-related deaths in Alberta, and 57 linked to benzodiazepine, up from 1,375 and 43, respectively, in 2022.
Mounties say officers responded to about 1,100 opioid-related calls for service, last year with a third of those proving fatal. RCMP officers also used naloxone 67 times while in the field, a jump of nearly a third over the previous year.
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Health
CFIA continues surveillance for HPAI in cattle, while sticking with original name for disease – RealAgriculture
The Canada Food Inspection Agency will continue to refer to highly pathogenic avian influenza in cattle as HPAI in cattle, and not refer to it as bovine influenza A virus (BIAV), as suggested by the American Association of Bovine Practitioners earlier this month.
Dr. Martin Appelt, senior director for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, in the interview below, says at this time Canada will stick with “HPAI in cattle” when referencing the disease that’s been confirmed in dairy cattle in multiple states in the U.S.
The CFIA’s naming policy is consistent with the agency’s U.S. counterparts’, as the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has also said it will continue referring to it as HPAI or H5N1.
Appelt explains how the CFIA is learning from the U.S. experience to-date, and how it is working with veterinarians across Canada to stay vigilant for signs of the disease in dairy and beef cattle.
As of April 19, there has not been a confirmed case of HPAI in cattle in Canada. Appelt says it’s too soon to say if an eventual positive case will significantly restrict animal movement, as is the case with positive poultry cases.
This is a major concern for the cattle industry, as beef cattle especially move north and south across the U.S. border by the thousands. Appelt says that CFIA will address an infection in each species differently in conjunction with how the disease is spread and the threat to neighbouring farms or livestock.
Currently, provincial dairy organizations have advised producers to postpone any non-essential tours of dairy barns, as a precaution, in addition to other biosecurity measures to reduce the risk of cattle contracting HPAI.
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Health
Toronto reports 2 more measles cases. Use our tool to check the spread in Canada – Toronto Star
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Canada has seen a concerning rise in measles cases in the first months of 2024.
By the third week of March, the country had already recorded more than three times the number of cases as all of last year. Canada had just 12 cases of measles in 2023, up from three in 2022.
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