Canada’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine has shown high efficacy against infection during Phase 3 clinical trials, the drugmakers behind the plant-based shot reported Tuesday, fuelling hopes it could soon get a stamp of approval for use.
Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Quebec City, and British-American vaccine giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are now gearing up for their final regulatory submission to Health Canada.
The vaccine’s overall efficacy rate against all virus variants studied was 71 per cent, with a higher efficacy rate of 75 per cent against COVID-19 infections of any severity from the dominant delta variant, the companies said in a news release.
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The results followed a global, Phase 3, placebo-controlled study of the two-dose vaccine that was launched last March. The newly discovered omicron variant — recently confirmed in various countries around the world, including Canada — was not circulating during the trial period.
If licensed in this country, the shot would be the first COVID-19 vaccine using virus-like particle technology and the first plant-based vaccine ever approved for human use, Brian Ward, medical officer for Medicago, said during a recent interview with CBC News.
“This would be a first for the world,” he added, “not just for Quebec and Canada.”
The shots use Medicago’s plant-derived, virus-like particles — which resemble the coronavirus behind COVID-19 but don’t contain its genetic material — and also contain an adjuvant from GSK to help boost the immune response.
In the vaccine’s Phase 3 trial, no severe cases of COVID-19 were reported in the vaccinated group, the release notes. No related serious adverse events were reported either, and reactions to the shots were “generally mild to moderate and transient,” with symptoms lasting, on average, only one to three days.
“I think there will be an important need for our vaccine, both to increase the number of doses available for those who haven’t had any vaccines yet, but also possibly for those who need a booster dose,” Ward said.
Canada’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine has shown high efficacy against infection during Phase 3 clinical trials, the drugmakers behind the plant-based shot reported Tuesday. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)
Results are promising, immunologist says
National Advisory Committee on Immunization working group member Matthew Miller, an immunologist at McMaster University in Hamilton who is working on developing a different type of vaccine for COVID-19, said the Medicago trial results are promising on both efficacy and safety.
He noted that the public information was so far limited to a news release, much like previous announcements from other vaccine manufacturers.
The trial itself was also hindered by time constraints and didn’t specifically break down the level of protection against severe illness. That’s because there were too few serious COVID-19 cases in the placebo arm and none in the vaccine arm, limiting the ability to draw strong conclusions, Miller said.
“Nevertheless, I think we can expect that with 75 per cent protection against any infection, you would expect even stronger protection against severe illness; that’s been universally true of every single other vaccine,” he added.
“The durability of that response, I think, is still a question that we’d have to wait and see.”
WATCH | Canada’s long-term plan for homegrown vaccines:
Canada’s long-term strategy to make vaccines for COVID-19 and beyond
11 months ago
Duration 8:15
Canada may not have a vaccine in production yet but it does have a long-term strategy in the works — to develop a made-in-Canada vaccine and the vaccine independence that comes with it. 8:15
The Phase 2 portion of the trial at multiple sites in Canada and the United States involved a mix of healthy adults, those with comorbidities and seniors over the age of 65, while the Phase 3 portion expanded to more than 24,000 participants in various countries.
If approved for use, the shot may help jump-start Canada’s sluggish vaccine production sector, said Miller, who has no current affiliation with Medicago but previously sat on a panel advising the company on influenza vaccines.
Canada lost its vaccine manufacturing capacity over time, but that could change with several Canadian COVID-19 vaccines currently in development, said Lakshmi Krishnan, director general of human health therapeutics at the National Research Council of Canada.
“We hope that in due time, all of that will align and we will be able to produce vaccines in Canada,” she said.
Trial looked at range of variants
Medicago is now one of the first to share trial results on how well its vaccine works against a range of variants, Ward said, unlike those earlier in the pandemic, which focused on the earliest strain of SARS-CoV-2.
The trial showed nearly 89 per cent efficacy against the gamma variant, with no cases of alpha, lambda or mu variants observed in the vaccinated group, while 12 cases were observed in the placebo arm.
While there’s concern over the omicron variant and whether it may evade some level of vaccine- or infection-based immunity, Ward said the company plans to get that data for its vaccine as soon as possible.
“The goalposts have moved,” Ward said.
Full results of the Phase 3 study will be released in a peer-reviewed publication, Medicago’s release noted.
If Health Canada gives the green light to the vaccine, it would be the fifth COVID-19 shot approved for use in Canada, alongside those from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
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MONTREAL – The employers association at the Port of Montreal has issued the dockworkers’ union a “final, comprehensive offer,” threatening to lock out workers at 9 p.m. Sunday if a deal isn’t reached.
The Maritime Employers Association says its new offer includes a three per cent salary increase per year for four years and a 3.5 per cent increase for the two subsequent years. It says the offer would bring the total average compensation package of a longshore worker at the Port of Montreal to more than $200,000 per year at the end of the contract.
“The MEA agrees to this significant compensation increase in view of the availability required from its employees,” it wrote Thursday evening in a news release.
The association added that it is asking longshore workers to provide at least one hour’s notice when they will be absent from a shift — instead of one minute — to help reduce management issues “which have a major effect on daily operations.”
Syndicat des débardeurs du port de Montréal, which represents nearly 1,200 longshore workers, launched a partial unlimited strike on Oct. 31, which has paralyzed two terminals that represent 40 per cent of the port’s total container handling capacity.
A complete strike on overtime, affecting the whole port, began on Oct. 10.
The union has said it will accept the same increases that were granted to its counterparts in Halifax or Vancouver — 20 per cent over four years. It is also concerned with scheduling and work-life balance. Workers have been without a collective agreement since Dec. 31, 2023.
Only essential services and activities unrelated to longshoring will continue at the port after 9 p.m. Sunday in the event of a lockout, the employer said.
The ongoing dispute has had major impacts at Canada’s second-biggest port, which moves some $400 million in goods every day.
On Thursday, Montreal port authority CEO Julie Gascon reiterated her call for federal intervention to end the dispute, which has left all container handling capacity at international terminals at “a standstill.”
“I believe that the best agreements are negotiated at the table,” she said in a news release. “But let’s face it, there are no negotiations, and the government must act by offering both sides a path to true industrial peace.”
Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon issued a statement Thursday, prior to the lockout notice, in which he criticized the slow pace of talks at the ports in Montreal and British Columbia, where more than 700 unionized port workers have been locked out since Nov. 4.
“Both sets of talks are progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved,” he wrote on the X social media platform.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Employers and the union representing supervisors embroiled in a labour dispute that triggered a lockout at British Columbia’s ports will attempt to reach a deal when talks restart this weekend.
A spokesman from the office of federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon has confirmed the minister spoke with leaders at both the BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514, but did not invoke any section of the Canadian Labour Code that would force them back to talks.
A statement from the ministry says MacKinnon instead “asked them to return to the negotiation table,” and talks are now scheduled to start on Saturday with the help of federal mediators.
A meeting notice obtained by The Canadian Press shows talks beginning in Vancouver at 5 p.m. and extendable into Sunday and Monday, if necessary.
The lockout at B.C. ports by employers began on Monday after what their association describes as “strike activity” from the union. The result was a paralysis of container cargo traffic at terminals across Canada’s west coast.
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint against the employers for allegedly bargaining in bad faith, a charge that employers call a “meritless claim.”
The two sides have been without a deal since March 2023, and the employers say its final offer presented last week in the last round of talks remains on the table.
The proposed agreement includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term along with an average lump sum payment of $21,000 per qualified worker.
The union has said one of its key concerns is the advent of port automation in cargo operations, and workers want assurances on staffing levels regardless of what technology is being used at the port.
The disruption is happening while two container terminals are shut down in Montreal in a separate labour dispute.
It leaves container cargo traffic disrupted at Canada’s two biggest ports, Vancouver and Montreal, both operating as major Canadian trade gateways on the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
This is one of several work disruptions at the Port of Vancouver, where a 13-day strike stopped cargo last year, while labour strife in the rail and grain-handling sectors led to further disruptions earlier this year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
