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Monkeypox: Vaccine recommended for Canadians at high risk of exposure – Global News

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Canadians who are at high risk of contracting monkeypox — not just those who have been infected — should get a vaccine, according to new guidance from the national body that provides advice to government on vaccines.

After reviewing the current status of the monkeypox outbreak in Canada, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) came out with new guidelines Friday saying anyone with a high risk of exposure to a probable or confirmed case of monkeypox, or someone who has visited a setting where transmission of the virus is happening, should receive one dose of the Imvamune vaccine.

NACI also said vaccines may be offered to those who are immunocompromised, pregnant or lactating, or children and youth, if they are at a higher risk of exposure.

Imvamune, normally used to treat smallpox, has been approved by Health Canada to treat monkeypox.

Ideally, those who have been exposed to this virus should receive their vaccine within four days of exposure, said Canada’s chief health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, during a briefing Friday in Ottawa.

Read more:

Monkeypox in Canada: 112 infections reported as global cases top 1,000

“The NACI recommendation is for one dose be offered to someone who knows that they’ve been in contact with a case or they’ve been in a high-risk exposure settings,” she said.

The recommendations state a second dose should only be offered in limited circumstances.

Local public health authorities are working with businesses and communities where outbreaks are happening in Canada to identify places where exposures may have occurred, and they are contacting people who may have been exposed to the virus in these locations, Tam said.

Given the scope of the outbreaks so far, mass vaccination against monkeypox is not necessary at this time, she added.

“For the general population, the risk at the present time is low.”


Click to play video: 'Canada issues travel notice as monkeypox cases spread'



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Canada issues travel notice as monkeypox cases spread


Canada issues travel notice as monkeypox cases spread

There are at least 112 cases of monkeypox confirmed in Canada as of Friday and all of those infected are male.

This includes 98 cases in Quebec, nine in Ontario, four in Alberta and one in British Columbia, with other suspected cases being investigated.

Monkeypox mainly spreads from close physical contact, including intimate sexual contact, or exposure to scabs or bodily fluids or even contaminated bed linens.

Most of the cases in Canada are currently among men who have had sexual contact with other men, though the virus can spread to anyone who has had contact with an infected person, Tam said.

Read more:

‘Anyone can get monkeypox’: experts emphasize science-first messaging

Tam said the Public Health Agency of Canada is working with vaccine manufacturers to ensure a sufficient supply of the Imvamune vaccine moving forward.

Canada “does not have an unlimited supply” of this vaccine, deputy chief public health officer Dr. Howard Njoo said in French during the briefing Friday.

“But with a good strategic approach, with a prudent approach, we believe it is possible to contain the outbreak.”

— with files from The Canadian Press.

© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

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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.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Scientists show how sperm and egg come together like a key in a lock

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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.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten

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