The Alberta government announced on Thursday that it will begin offering the monkeypox vaccine to people who self-identify as meeting the eligibility criteria for targeted prevention prior to an exposure — bringing the province’s policy in line with British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, where some gay and bisexual Alberta men had been travelling in order to receive shots.
Gay and bisexual men and their advocates have told CBC News that they were frustrated by having to travel to other provinces to get vaccinated against monkeypox.
While British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec have been offering preventative vaccination campaigns targeted at those considered at high risk of being exposed to the virus, until Thursday’s policy shift, Alberta was only giving the shot to people who have actually been exposed.
But as of July 29, Albertans 18 and older who self-identify as meeting the eligibility criteria for targeted prevention prior to an exposure can get the monkeypox vaccine, Alberta Health said in Thursday’s news release.
Those eligible will include:
Transgender, cisgender or two-spirit individuals who self-identify as belonging to the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM) community and who meet at least one of the following criteria:
Have received a recent (in the last six months) diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection.
Are planning to have, or in the past 90 days had, sex outside of a mutually monogamous relationship.
Have attended venues for sexual contact within the past 90 days (e.g., bath houses, sex clubs) or may be planning to, or who work/volunteer in these settings.
Any sexual contacts of the individuals described above.
Staff and volunteers in a social setting or venue or event where sexual activities between men (individuals described above) may take place.
Some Albertans were seeking shots out of province
Edmonton resident Kory deGroot is planning to head to Montreal next week with his partner on holiday. While there, the two were going to try to get vaccinated because the vaccine wasn’t available to them in Alberta, despite being at higher risk of contracting the virus and fitting the vaccination criteria in other provinces.
The majority of new monkeypox cases in Canada and Europe have occurred in men who have sex with men (MSM) and deGroot, a gay man, said prior to the change that he was frustrated by what he saw as Alberta’s slow reaction to an unfolding public health emergency.
“I don’t want to get [the virus] and you know, I just want to decrease risk,” he said. “I feel like what we’ve learned through the pandemic is just, prevention is key.”
DeGroot searched Alberta Health and AHS websites for ways he might be able to get a monkeypox vaccine but couldn’t find any indication he was eligible. Then he spoke with friends and found out it was being offered in Montreal.
“So we do plan on getting it while we’re there because tourists can get the monkeypox vaccine,” he said.
Many places in Canada have already been approaching vaccination based on self-identified behaviours, vaccinating trans people, gay, bi and other groups of men who have sex with men who are having non-monogamous sex.
An Alberta Health policy dated June 7 said the monkeypox vaccine was only available to those who have been exposed to the virus.
As of Wednesday, Alberta had given out 36 doses of Imvamune, the vaccine used to prevent and treat monkeypox and smallpox. The province currently has 1,200 doses from the federal government and is working with the feds to acquire more, according to an Alberta Health spokesperson.
As of July 26, there have been 13 confirmed case of monkeypox in Alberta.
By comparison, there have been 58 monkeypox cases in B.C., as of July 26.
Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), the B.C. health authority stretching from Richmond to the Sunshine Coast and part of the Central Coast, started a pre-exposure vaccination campaign on July 1. It targets transgender people, gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men who meet additional high-risk criteria and are 18 years old and over, a spokesperson said in an email.
A health-care worker prepares monkeypox vaccine in Montreal on July 23, 2022. Tourists are among those lining up to get monkeypox vaccines in Montreal, as the World Health Organization declares the virus a global health emergency. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
As of July 26, VCH had vaccinated more than 6,000 people — some of whom reside outside of B.C. — at booked clinic appointments and at pop-up outreach clinics at events and businesses in Vancouver’s queer community.
“We are not actively encouraging people from outside of B.C. to seek vaccination at our clinics,” wrote VCH public affairs specialist Jeremy Deutsch, “but if they are in the VCH region and meet the eligibility criteria, they can be vaccinated.”
Deutsch added they did not know how many or what percentage of patients had come from out of province.
A colourized transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (teal) found within an infected cell (brown), is shown in a handout photo captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. (HO-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/The Canadian Press)
Many who work in gay men’s health see it only as a matter of time before case numbers start to grow in Alberta.
“Even though our case numbers are still relatively low in comparison to places like Ontario, Quebec and in British Columbia, it’s hard not to see us as behind the eight ball,” said Nolan Hill, a gay men’s heath specialist at the Centre for Sexuality in Calgary.
He said there is a lack of information from the provincial government for patients who are increasingly asking about testing and vaccinations for monkeypox when coming in for STI testing.
Instead it’s falling on the community who are often left in the dark, which he said leads to increased stigma and worries of monkeypox being seen as a gay disease.
“That lack of information just I think breeds a sense of mistrust and a sense of feeling left behind by the health system,” he said.
“We’ve seen that there is historical mistrust of the community, in our health systems, starting all the way back in with the AIDS epidemic.”
DeGroot is hopeful the lack of pre-exposure vaccination isn’t because of discrimination but still worries it could be.
“It would be interesting to see the response if it was impacting a different demographic, for sure,” he said.
DeGroot still plans to get his vaccine when he heads to Montreal next week but he worries about the equity issues for those who aren’t planning vacations or just can’t afford the plane ticket.
“If it continues to be like the only way that Albertans can get a vaccine is by travelling out of province,” he says, “that is a huge concern.”
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 government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
