The World Health Organization (WHO) said the rising number of bird flu cases has raised “great concern” because it had an “extremely high” mortality rate among those who had been infected around the world.
The WHO’s data show that from 2003 through March 2024, a total of 889 worldwide human cases of H5N1 infection had been recorded in 23 countries, resulting in 463 deaths and a 52 percent mortality rate. The majority of deaths occurred in Southeast Asian countries and Egypt.
The most recent death was in Vietnam in late March, when a 21-year-old male without underlying conditions died of the infection after bird hunting. So far, cases in Europe and the United States have been mild.
Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the WHO, said recently that H5N1, predominantly started in poultry and ducks, “has spread effectively over the course of the last one or two years to become a global zoonotic — animal — pandemic”.
He said that the great concern is that the virus is increasingly infecting mammals and then develops the ability to infect humans. It would become critical if the virus develops the ability to “go from human-to-human transmission”, Farrar said.
In the past month, health officials have detected H5N1 in cows and goats from 29 dairy herds across eight states in the US, saying it is an alarming development because those livestock weren’t considered susceptible to H5N1.
The development worries health experts and officials because humans regularly come into contact with livestock on farms. In the US, there are only two recorded cases of human infection — one in 2022 and one in April this year in Texas. Both infected individuals worked in close proximity to livestock, but their symptoms were mild.
Wenqing Zhang, head of the WHO’s global influenza program, told the Daily Mail that “bird-to-cow, cow-to-cow and cow-to-bird transmission have also been registered during these current outbreaks, which suggest that the virus may have found other routes of transition than we previously understood”.
Zhang said that multiple herds of cow infections in the US states meant “a further step of the virus spillover to mammals”.
The virus has been found in raw milk, but the Texas Health Services department has said the cattle infections don’t present a concern for the commercial milk supply, as dairies are required to destroy milk from sick cows. In addition, pasteurization also kills the virus.
Darin Detwiler, a former food safety adviser to the Food and Drug Administration and the US Agriculture Department, said that Americans should avoid rare meat and runny eggs while the outbreak in cattle is going on to avoid the possibility of infection from those foods.
Nevertheless, both the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the risk the virus poses to the public is still low. Currently no human-to-human infection has been detected.
On the potential HN51 public health risk, Farrar cautioned that vaccine development was not “where we need to be”.
According to a report by Barron’s, under the current plan by the US Health and Human Services Department, if there is an H5N1 pandemic, the government would be able to supply a few hundred thousand doses within weeks, then 135 million within about four months.
People would need two doses of the shot to be fully protected. That means the US government would be able to inoculate about 68 million people — 20 percent — of 330 million in case of an outbreak.
The situation is being closely watched by scientists and health officials. Some experts said that a high mortality rate might not necessarily hold true in the event the virus became contagious among people.
“We may not see the level of mortality that we’re really concerned about,” Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University, told The New York Times. “Preexisting immunity to seasonal flu strains will provide some protection from severe disease.”
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.
