Giving a school-aged child an invasive, uncomfortable nasal swab test for COVID-19 might be tricky.
Asking them to spit in a cup? It could be a simpler approach.
That’s the thought process behind calls from both researchers and public health officials to launch saliva tests in schools. But despite international efforts to make this option a reality, there’s still no word on when saliva-based testing for COVID-19 will be allowed in Canada.
“School is just around the corner, and I feel like we’re lagging behind,” said researcher Dr. Michael Glogauer, a professor in the faculty of dentistry at the University of Toronto who has been focusing on saliva as a diagnostic tool for the last two decades. “We’re further behind than we should be on this.”
So why isn’t it available yet?
South of the border, five saliva-based tests have been approved so far by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — including, most recently, a headline-making test for COVID-19 developed by Yale University researchers with funding support from the National Basketball Association.
Major League Baseball is already using saliva tests for players, and some American universities have also started offering saliva-based options to test students back on campus this fall.
Much like the current tests which send nasal swab samples back to a lab, those tests — and other similar ones being developed in Canada — involve sending saliva samples to a lab for processing, with results back in around 24 hours.
But no such saliva-based tests have yet been authorized by Health Canada.
“Health Canada reviews all COVID-19-related applications as quickly as possible without compromising patient safety,” said spokesperson Eric Morrissette in a statement provided to CBC News.
Glogauer, who is also head of dental oncology at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, said Canada is “always playing catch-up.”
Dozens of research teams at the University of Toronto and across the country are exploring saliva-based testing, he said, and dealing with ongoing “back and forth” with government officials.
Glogauer’s own team is focusing on one of the FDA-approved saliva-based lab tests already in use in the U.S. and is now applying for Health Canada approval.
“It’s effective, it works, it can be used within the laboratory system. It’s plug and play,” he said.
“It’s just a matter of Health Canada approving these tests, and getting to work on it.”
In Toronto, the city with Canada’s largest public school board, public health officials urgently want a saliva testing pilot project, and are calling on both the federal and provincial governments to give the green light so local schools can explore how to collect saliva.
WATCH | Saliva tests for COVID-19 could make schools safer, proponents say:
Spitting in a cup may soon be an alternative to the standard COVID-19 test that goes up through the nose, but saliva tests haven’t yet been approved for use in Canada. 2:00
“It’s less obtrusive, a little easier,” said Joe Cressy, chair of Toronto’s board of health, who works closely with the Toronto Public Health officials recommending this approach.
“Given that we need to be so proactive in testing in congregate school settings, it could be a really important and helpful way to help us prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
Parents often decline the current swab testing because they don’t want their children to go through that experience, noted the city’s associate medical officer of health Dr. Vinita Dubey.
Provincial health workers perform a nasal swab to test for COVID-19 on Raymond Robins of the remote First Nation community of Gull Bay, Ont., on April 21. Proponents of saliva-based testing say it is easier to administer — and less uncomfortable. (David Jackson/Reuters)
She said research shows saliva-based testing may be slightly less accurate, “but it may have some benefits in its ease of use.”
Provincial officials say they’re also asking for Health Canada to approve a saliva test.
“If and when a saliva-based collection kit has been approved for use in Canada, recommendations for use in Ontario will be provided by the province,” a spokesperson for the Ontario’s health ministry told CBC News in a statement.
Concerns over result delays
While calls for new testing options may be growing, Dr. Zain Chagla, a Hamilton, Ont.-based infectious disease specialist, said any eventual rollout of saliva testing in schools or elsewhere needs to be done “thoughtfully.”
Since current models being explored would require existing lab facilities, he said widespread testing could eat up crucial resources, particularly as the regular cold and flu season approaches.
“You may run into issues with slowdowns and delayed turnaround times,” Chagla said.
That’s the impetus for some teams who are also exploring how to create near-instant saliva-based test kits, which could work like a pregnancy test — offering a quick result, without requiring lab facilities at all.
A student in California provides saliva for an experimental COVID-19 coronavirus test for asymptomatic people. Some American universities have also started offering saliva-based options to test students. (Irene Yi/UC Berkeley via AP)
University of Saskatchewan researchers, for instance, are currently developing a saliva-based COVID-19 home testing kit which would provide results in a few minutes, but the technology isn’t expected to be available until the spring of 2021.
Glogauer said his team is exploring similar options, and stressed even lab-based testing of saliva samples could be helpful for schools.
While the samples would still need to be processed off-site, he said the collection could be done easily at home by parents or in schools by existing staff, without requiring medical teams in full protective gear.
“This would be an ideal test to be used on high school students, for example, as a means toward screening, detecting asymptomatic spreaders — giving confidence to the system that students testing positive can be isolated,” he said.
Glogauer said multiple private schools in the Toronto area have already expressed interest.
All that’s needed now, he said, is a “rubber stamp.”
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.
