Health Canada has approved the use of Moderna’s Spikevax XBB.1.5 COVID-19 vaccine for all Canadians over the age of six months.
Officials from Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the National Advisory Committee on Immunization discussed details of the approval during a technical briefing on Tuesday.
“The vaccine was authorized after an independent and thorough scientific review for safety, efficacy and quality, and this included a review of data from several studies of the primary series of booster doses of the Spikevax vaccine collected over the past two years,” Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser with Health Canada, said during the briefing.
“After assessing all the data we have concluded that there is strong evidence showing that the benefits of this vaccine outweigh the potential risks.”
Sharma said recommendations include one dose for people five years old and older – regardless of COVID-19 vaccination history – one dose for children under four, and two doses for children between six months and four years old who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID. She said children six months to four years old who have received a previous dose of a vaccine should receive a single dose of the updated vaccine.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said each province and territory will provide additional information about regional COVID-19 and flu vaccine availability, but that “we will have enough supply of the updated COVID-19 vaccines to support immunization programs across Canada.”
Health Canada is also reviewing a submission by Pfizer-BioNTech to have its Omicron XBB.1.5 vaccine approved for use in people six months and older, as well as a submission by Novavax for its Omicron XBB.1.5 vaccine for people 12 years and older.
AUTUMN OUTLOOK
Last fall, Canada experienced an early start to the influenza season as well as high numbers of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections. While 2023 has so far seen COVID-19 indicators drop to historically low levels, Tam said COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations have been on the rise in the last several weeks.
“The Omicron variant continues to evolve with XBB subvariants such as EG.5 continuing to circulate in Canada and globally,” she said, adding that Canada has recorded 11 cases of Omicron subvariant BA.2.86.
“It is difficult to predict what will happen this fall and winter regarding the circulation of influenza, RSV and COVID-19 given that it is still early in the season,” she said. “But the good news is we can get prepared and protect ourselves in case simultaneous surges of respiratory viruses occur. This is why receiving a COVID-19 vaccine dose as well as a flu shot this fall is especially important.”
Tam urged all eligible Canadians to roll up their sleeves and stay up-to-date with their COVID-19 vaccinations. Anyone who has not been infected with COVID-19 or received a COVID-19 vaccination in the past six months is encouraged to get vaccinated with the latest version of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Tam said preliminary clinical data has shown the XBB.1.5 vaccine triggers an immune response against several Omicron sublineages, including EG.5 and BA.2.86. She also reiterated that it is safe to receive a flu vaccine and a COVID-19 vaccine at the same time.
The United States government on Monday approved updated COVID-19 vaccines in a bid to bolster protection against the latest coronavirus strains and soften any surges this fall and winter.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration isn’t calling those a booster, but rather an updated vaccine. Health Canada is using the same language.
– With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
HALIFAX – Police have accused a Nova Scotia man of murdering a woman reported missing from the province’s Annapolis Valley after U.S. authorities detained a suspect at the Houston airport as he was preparing to board a flight to Mexico.
The RCMP say they charged 54-year-old Dale Allen Toole with first-degree murder after he was extradited by U.S. authorities and landed at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Thursday.
RCMP Insp. Murray Marcichiw said investigators have yet to find the body of 55-year-old Esther Jones, but he said police believe there was sufficient evidence to lay the murder charge.
The search for Jones began on Labour Day after family members reported her missing.
RCMP Cpl. Jeff MacFarlane, lead investigator in the case, says Jones was last seen Aug. 31 at the Kingston Bible College in Greenwood, N.S.
MacFarlane says the accused, who is from Tremont, N.S., was not a suspect until police received key information from the Jones family and the community.
He said police executed a number of search warrants at locations in and around Annapolis County, including the communities of Kingston, Greenwood and South Tremont.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
MONTREAL – The Quebec government says Canada’s special representative on combating Islamophobia must resign, after she sent a letter to college and university heads recommending the hiring of more Muslim, Arab and Palestinian professors.
The existence of the letter, dated Aug. 30, was first reported by Le Journal de Québec, and a Canadian Heritage spokesperson says it was sent to institutions across the country.
In her letter, Amira Elghawaby says that since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, a dangerous climate has arisen on campuses.
She says to ease tensions educational institutions should be briefed on civil liberties and Islamophobia, and that they should hire more professors of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian origin.
It was this reference to hiring that drew the immediate indignation of Quebec’s higher education minister, who called on Elghawaby to resign, saying she should “mind her own business.”
Minister Pascale Déry says hiring professors based on religion goes against the principles of secularism the province adheres to.
Speaking to reporters in the Montreal area, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that while each university will make its own hires, Elghawaby’s role is to make recommendations and encourage dialogue between different groups.
Later in Repentigny, Que., Premier François Legault criticized Trudeau for defending Elghawaby “in the name of diversity” and refusing to call for her resignation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – A report into a triple stabbing at a festival in Vancouver’s Chinatown last year says the man accused of the crimes had been let out of a psychiatric care facility 99 times in the year prior without incident.
The report, authored by former Abbotsford Police chief Bob Rich, says the suspect in the stabbing, Blair Donnelly, was on his 100th unescorted leave from the BC Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on Sept. 10, 2023, when he allegedly stabbed three festivalgoers at the Light Up Chinatown Festival.
The external review, ordered by the provincial government after the stabbings, says Donnelly was found not criminally responsible for killing his daughter in 2006 while “suffering from a psychotic delusion that God wanted him to kill her.”
Rich’s report makes several recommendations to better handle “higher-risk patients,” including bolstering their care teams, improving policies around granting patient leaves, shoring up staff training in forensics and the use of “risk-management tools,” such as GPS tracking systems.
The B.C. Ministry of Health says it has accepted all of Rich’s recommendations and has already begun implementing them including “following new polices for granting leave privileges at the hospital.”
Court records show Donnelly is due back in Vancouver provincial court in March 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
