As Canada’s health care system struggles amid health-care worker shortages and burnout while Canadians continue to deal with the threat of COVID-19 and monkeypox, the news of another disease forming a potential threat has sparked questions and concerns among Canadians.
But what is this life-threatening disease and what tools do we have to face it? Here’s what we know about the infection.
WHAT IS IT?
Meningococcal disease refers broadly to illnesses caused by a specific bacterium called Neisseria meningitidis, sometimes just referred to as the meningococcal bacterium.
These illnesses can include meningitis, an inflammation of the fluid around the brain and spinal cord. It can also result in septicemia, a serious form of sepsis in which the blood is infected.
Not all types of meningitis are caused by meningococcal disease, as it can be caused by several different types of bacterial infection, viral infections or even a fungal infection, in rare cases.
The presentation of invasive meningococcal disease can vary depending on if it progresses to meningitis or septicemia, but all forms of meningococcal disease are an emergency, and require immediate medical attention.
Around one in 10 people who contract meningococcal disease will die, and up to a fifth of survivors may have long-term disabilities, including brain damage, deafness or loss of limbs, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Meningococcal disease is endemic in Canada, which means that outbreaks do occur from time to time, although they are rare, with the incidence rate varying across the country.
Between 2012 and 2019, the average incidence rate nationally was 1 case per 290,000 people. According to Health Canada, the most recent documented outbreak was in 2017 among five adolescents in B.C.
HOW DOES IT SPREAD AND HOW INFECTIOUS IS IT?
Meningococcal disease is spread through close contact with the saliva of others through activities such as kissing, coughing or sneezing as well as sharing items that are inserted into the mouth such as toothbrushes, cigarettes, mouth guards, chapstick or lipstick or musical instruments performed using the mouth.
Around one in ten people are carriers of the meningococcal bacterium, meaning they unknowingly have it in their nose and throat without becoming ill themselves.
The meningococcal bacterium is far less transmissible than the virus than causes COVID-19 — you cannot contract meningococcal disease purely from breathing the same air as someone carrying the bacteria.
It also is more difficult to transmit than the common cold or flu, according to the CDC, and a person generally needs close and lengthy contact with a patient to contract it.
When a person contracts the disease, their family members, roommates and romantic partners are more at risk of also contracting it.
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU HAVE IT?
A person who has contracted the disease will begin experiencing symptoms in two to 10 days after exposure, with most symptoms appearing within three to four days, according to Health Canada.
Common symptoms include a sudden fever, headache and a stiff neck for those with meningococcal meningitis, potentially accompanied by vomiting, light sensitivity and confusion.
For those with septicemia caused by meningococcal disease, symptoms can include fever and chills, vomiting, fatigue, cold hands and feet, muscle aches and diarrhea.
In later stages, meningococcal septicemia can be accompanied by a fast spreading skin rash that starts as purplish spots.
Because many of the early symptoms are so similar to other illnesses, the disease has to be diagnosed through laboratory testing, making it important to seek medical attention as soon as you suspect you may have the disease.
Without treatment, a patient could end up hallucinating, falling into a coma, or even dying.
HOW IS IT TREATED?
Those with invasive meningococcal disease are treated with antibiotics for three to seven days. Doctors will issue antibiotics as soon as a person says they suspect they have the disease, even before confirmation, in order to reduce the risk of the illness progressing to fatal.
If the disease was only caught in the later stages, a person might hospitalization for breathing support, care for skin damaged by a rash or surgery for dead tissue.
IS THERE A VACCINE?
There are several vaccines approved for use in Canada which target well-known serogroups of meningococcal disease. The Men-C vaccine protects against type C, the meningococcal quadrivalent vaccine protects against types A, C, Y and W-135, and the Men-B vaccine protects against type B.
According to the City of Toronto, all three individuals confirmed Thursday to have contracted meningococcal disease had the “same rare strain of serogroup C meningococcal disease.”
Infants in Canada are able to receive the Men-C vaccine as part of routine immunizations as two doses at 2 months and 12 months.
Either the Men-C or the quadrivalent vaccine is offered through school immunization programs in all of the provinces and territories in Canada, although the grade at which the vaccine is offered varies from grade 6-12 depending on the region.
In Ontario and New Brunswick, proof of vaccination against meningococcal disease is required for all school-attending children.
While many people in Canada will have received vaccination against meningococcal disease through these routine immunizations given to children, large immunization programs to vaccinate against meningococcal disease only became widespread in Canada the early 2000s, although there were several immunization campaigns that launched in the 90s in response to outbreaks in certain provinces.
This means many adults may have never received a vaccine.
“Adults between 20 and 36 years old who have not received a meningococcal disease vaccine are strongly recommended to contact their health care provider to receive a meningococcal disease vaccine as soon as possible,” the statement reads. “TPH will monitor vaccine demand and is actively exploring additional vaccination channels.”
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.
New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.
“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.
Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.
It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.
Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.
Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.
The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.
The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.
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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.
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