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It's tick season again. Here's what you need to know – CBC.ca

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Many people have spent their spring largely indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But as restrictions ease and certain areas re-open for hiking and camping, people are being reminded to keep an eye out for ticks. 

“The most important thing to know is where you’re going to find ticks, so you can avoid that habitat,” Katie Clow, assistant professor at University of Guelph and expert in ticks and tick-borne diseases, told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo.

Black-legged ticks tend to stay inside forested areas, especially in bushy areas.

“They’re pretty lazy, they just sit there and wait for something to come along,” she said.

Clow recommended hikers stay on marked trails away from forested areas. That’s where ticks lie in wait, she said. 

She also said hikers should: 

  • Cover up. This ensures you have less exposed skin for ticks to bite. 
  • Wear light-coloured clothing. That way you can spot a tick if it lands on you. 
  • Use DEET. While it’s not 100 per cent effective, it is a good deterrent. 
  • Check all parts of your body for ticks when you get home. Ticks like to hide in warm, moist places.
  • Check pets for ticks as well.

Lyme disease risk

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection caused by a bite from the deer tick or black-legged tick. Lyme disease symptoms can include fever, headache, flu-like symptoms, swollen lymph nodes and muscle and joint pains for up to a week with no obvious cause.

Symptoms can begin three to 30 days after a tick bite. Some patients get a very red round or oval rash  between four and six inches in size.

Clow said the risk of Lyme disease can vary depending on the geographic region. Areas with established tick populations can be especially risky, she said. 

She said the best way to understand where the risk is highest, is by checking Public Health Ontario’s Lyme disease risk map.

Clow said it’s important to check yourself for ticks soon after returning home from an outdoor trip. Removing ticks quickly can reduce the risk of Lyme disease, she said. 

If you are bitten by a tick or if you find one on your pet, you can submit photos to the website etick.ca and they will advise you of the species.

“If [you] know what species it is that’s a really good way to then engage with your physician and to figure out what the next step should be,” Clow said.

Fall is the prime season for adult black legged ticks, says Katie Clow, an assisant professor at the Ontario Veterinary College. (Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images)

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Some Ontario docs now offering RSV shot to infants with Quebec rollout set for Nov.

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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.

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Polio is rising in Pakistan ahead of a new vaccination campaign

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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.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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White House says health insurance needs to fully cover condoms, other over-the-counter birth control

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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.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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