Andre Lavoie knew almost immediately that he was suffering a stroke.
The 60-year-old from Calgary was helping his wife put away groceries in 2015 when he dropped a can onto the floor.
“I bent to pick it up with my left arm and … nothing. I could not pick it up,” Lavoie said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“I said ‘Oh My God. I’m having a stroke.’ Luckily it did not affect my judgment and I went to my wife and said ‘call 911.’”
Lavoie said he is one of the lucky ones. His blood clot cleared on its own by the time the ambulance arrived, but months of headaches and a feeling of unease followed.
He agreed to be part of a focus group at the Foothills Medical Centre conducted by the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine. It was part of a large study about the use of an established heart medication in stroke patients.
Research published Wednesday in the British medical journal The Lancet shows that Tenecteplase, commonly used as a clot-buster for heart attacks, is also an effective treatment for acute ischemic stroke — when blood flow through a brain artery is blocked by a clot.
The two-year study, which included Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto, included 1,600 patients at hospitals throughout Canada. It was the largest stroke clinical trial ever run in the country.
Dr. Bijoy Menon, a University of Calgary professor and a neurologist at Foothills hospital, was the co-principal investigator of the study. He said the common treatment has been a drug called Alteplase, which is effective but more difficult to administer.
He said it takes up to an hour and requires an infusion pump that needs to be monitored.
That’s not the case with the heart drug, which is simply injected and begins working almost immediately, said Menon.
“The big advantage would actually be the speed at which this could be delegated. This could be delegated really easy and fast for folks in rural hospitals, in ambulances, folks even in big hospitals … everything gets done really fast so that’s the big advantage of this new drug.
“The time you make up could really improve outcomes.”
Menon said the findings could revolutionize stroke treatment and could also offer a less expensive option in mid- and lower-income countries.
“Tenecteplase is known to be an effective clot-dissolving drug. It is very easy to administer, which makes it a game-changer when seconds count to save brain cells,” Menon said.
“When you are treating your patients faster, they tend to do better and it saves lives.”
Lavoie said when he shared his input in the focus group, he said using the heart drug in stroke patients was a good idea.
“When they said this is one injection and they can do it earlier than the other one I said ‘Jeez don’t do a study. Just do it,’” he said with a chuckle.
“If I get another stroke I know what to ask for.”
Menon said the drug is already proven to be safe and, with the results of the study, he expects it could be months rather than years before it starts to be used on a regular basis.
Carol Kenney, the clinical trials nurse coordinator, said the new drug would free nurses up to provide additional treatment for the patients once it is administered.
“We say time is brains so the quicker we treat patients the better it is.”
Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.
The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.
Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.
Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.
Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.
The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
-With files from Nicole Ireland
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.
Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.
The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.
“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”
The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”
Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.
If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.
Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.
The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.
