Health
Delta variant accounts for 95% of recent COVID-19 cases in B.C., says BCCDC – Vancouver Is Awesome
The latest report from the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) finds that nearly all new coronavirus cases in the province are the highly transmissible Delta variant strain.
Of all the positive samples sequenced from July 25 to July 31 in B.C., 100 per cent of the cases were confirmed variants of concern, according to the BCCDC Weekly Update on Variants of Concern (VOC).
The report states that the main circulating variant is Delta (B.1.617.2), accounting for about 95 per cent of positive specimens sequenced.
The Gamma variant accounted for approximately three per cent of positive specimens sequenced while the Alpha made up about two per cent.
The BCCDC notes that the prevalence of VOCs was similar across health authorities. However, this week’s report reflects partial data due to a delay in receipt of positive samples from front-line laboratories; changes are expected as additional specimens are received and sequenced.
Delta variant displacing Alpha in B.C.
Earlier this month, Prof. Sarah Otto of the University of British Columbia told the Canadian Press that the Delta variant, which first became prominent in India, is displacing the one that originated in the United Kingdom.
“Delta is now the most common variant in the province, with its frequency doubling every week relative to Alpha,” said Otto, who is an expert in the university’s zoology department on the mathematical models of pandemic growth and evolution.
Originally a variant of interest, B.1.617.2, now known as the Delta variant of concern under the World Health Organization’s new naming system, surfaced in Canada earlier this year. In April, incoming passenger flights from India and Pakistan were banned in an effort to curb the spread of the highly transmissible strain.
Back in June, health officials from across the globe warned that the strain posed a dire threat to eliminating COVID-19.
South of the border, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infectious disease expert, told reporters in a White House COVID-19 Response Briefing on June 22 that the Delta variant’s “transmissibility is undeniably greater.”
Dr. Jeffrey Joy, Assistant Professor at UBC’s Department of Medicine, told Vancouver Is Awesome in a previous interview that he wholeheartedly agreed with Fauci’s sentiment.
The Delta variant has 10 different mutations in the spike protein, relative to the original coronavirus (COVID-19) strain, explained Joy. “And in particular, it has three that make it easier for the virus to attach to the ACE2 receptor which is a receptor on our human cells that allows it to infect ours cells more easily, particularly for mutations.”
The BCCDC’s latest report notes, however, that 78 per cent of new hospitalizations were in unvaccinated people.
Otto said B.C. is beginning a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, but how high it will get and how fast it will rise depends on everybody’s behaviour.
The two things people can do to prevent the wave from getting “very high” is get vaccinated and avoid indoor crowded spaces without a mask, she said.
The province and the country will continue seeing such waves as new, more transmissible variants arise, but Otto noted that “vaccinations are really protecting people from the worst ravages of this disease.”
With files from the Canadian Press.
Health
Interior Health delivers nearly 800K immunization doses in 2023
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Interior Health says it delivered nearly 800,000 immunization doses last year — a number almost equal to the region’s population.
The released figure of 784,980 comes during National Immunization Awareness Week, which runs April 22-30.
The health care organization, which serves a large area of around 820,000, says it’s using the occasion to boost vaccine rates even though there may be post-pandemic vaccine fatigue.
“This is a very important initiative because it ensures that communicable diseases stay away from a region,” said Dr. Silvina Mema of Interior Health.
However, not all those doses were for COVID; the tally includes childhood immunizations plus immunizations for adults.
But IHA said immunizations are down from the height of the pandemic, when COVID vaccines were rolled out, though it seems to be on par with previous pre-pandemic years.
Interior Health says it’d like to see the overall immunization rate rise.
“Certainly there are some folks who have decided a vaccine is not for them. And they have their reasons,” said Jonathan Spence, manager of communicable disease prevention and control at Interior Health.
“I think there’s a lot of people who are hesitant, but that’s just simply because they have questions.
“And that’s actually part of what we’re celebrating this week is those public health nurses, those pharmacists, who can answer questions and answer questions with really good information around immunization.”
Mima echoed that sentiment.
“We take immunization very seriously. It’s a science-based program that has saved countless lives across the world and eliminated diseases that were before a threat and now we don’t see them anymore,” she said.
“So immunization is very important.”
Health
Remnants of bird flu virus found in pasteurized milk, FDA says
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that samples of pasteurized milk had tested positive for remnants of the bird flu virus that has infected dairy cows.
The agency stressed that the material is inactivated and that the findings “do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers.” Officials added that they’re continuing to study the issue.
“To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA said in a statement.
The announcement comes nearly a month after an avian influenza virus that has sickened millions of wild and commercial birds in recent years was detected in dairy cows in at least eight states. The Agriculture Department says 33 herds have been affected to date.
FDA officials didn’t indicate how many samples they tested or where they were obtained. The agency has been evaluating milk during processing and from grocery stores, officials said. Results of additional tests are expected in “the next few days to weeks.”
The PCR lab test the FDA used would have detected viral genetic material even after live virus was killed by pasteurization, or heat treatment, said Lee-Ann Jaykus, an emeritus food microbiologist and virologist at North Carolina State University
“There is no evidence to date that this is infectious virus and the FDA is following up on that,” Jaykus said.
Officials with the FDA and the USDA had previously said milk from affected cattle did not enter the commercial supply. Milk from sick animals is supposed to be diverted and destroyed. Federal regulations require milk that enters interstate commerce to be pasteurized.
Because the detection of the bird flu virus known as Type A H5N1 in dairy cattle is new and the situation is evolving, no studies on the effects of pasteurization on the virus have been completed, FDA officials said. But past research shows that pasteurization is “very likely” to inactivate heat-sensitive viruses like H5N1, the agency added.
Matt Herrick, a spokesman for the International Dairy Foods Association, said that time and temperature regulations for pasteurization ensure that the commercial U.S. milk supply is safe. Remnants of the virus “have zero impact on human health,” he wrote in an email.
Scientists confirmed the H5N1 virus in dairy cows in March after weeks of reports that cows in Texas were suffering from a mysterious malady. The cows were lethargic and saw a dramatic reduction in milk production. Although the H5N1 virus is lethal to commercial poultry, most infected cattle seem to recover within two weeks, experts said.
To date, two people in U.S. have been infected with bird flu. A Texas dairy worker who was in close contact with an infected cow recently developed a mild eye infection and has recovered. In 2022, a prison inmate in a work program caught it while killing infected birds at a Colorado poultry farm. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Health
Canada Falling Short in Adult Vaccination Rates – VOCM
Canada is about where it should be when it comes to childhood vaccines, but for adult vaccinations it’s a different story.
Dr. Vivien Brown of Immunize Canada says the overall population should have rates of between 80 and 90 per cent for most vaccines, but that is not the case.
She says most children are in that range but not for adult vaccines and ultimately the most at-risk populations are not being reached.
She says the population is under immunized for conditions such as pneumonia, shingles, tetanus, and pertussis.
Brown wants people to talk with their family physician or pharmacist to see if they are up-to-date on vaccines, and to get caught up because many are “killer diseases.”
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