A co-chair of Canada’s new COVID-19 vaccine task force says it will be critical to have a number of vaccine candidates on hand to halt the spread of the coronavirus should any of the country’s leading options fail.
“The vaccine task force strategy is to develop — and we have developed — a portfolio of vaccines,” said Dr. Joanne Langley, head of infectious diseases at Halifax’s IWK Health Centre. “The announcement that you heard this week was for two vaccines, but in fact we’ve been recommending a suite of vaccines across a number of platforms and negotiations about those vaccines are underway.”
Langley spoke to CBC Radio’s The House after the federal government announced it had signed deals with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and biotechnology firm Moderna to secure millions of doses of potential vaccines.
“If one or two of them fails, we hope to have a number in our back pocket that we can use,” she said.
Anand said Wednesday the government is negotiating with other potential suppliers, both inside and outside Canada. Exactly how many isn’t clear, and government officials remain reluctant to say how many doses will be needed.
Procurement Minister Anita Anand talks about the process behind Canada’s work to secure millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, while co-chair of Canada’s Vaccine Task Force Dr. Joanne Langley discusses why multiple candidates are key to ensuring Canadians are protected. NaN:NaN
Imminent vaccine unlikely
In a separate interview with The House, Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand said the number of other companies Canada is currently negotiating with “is larger than two and less than 10.”
“There is risk in this process, of course, including the fact that the global environment is extremely competitive and that it is uncertain in terms of outcome,” Anand said. “Having said that, we have an obligation to make sure that we as a country are well-placed to be able to disseminate and distribute vaccines to Canadians.”
But Langley agrees with the consensus that a successful candidate won’t emerge until 2021 — a timeframe that comes too late for students heading back schools amid an anticipated second wave.
“Many of the companies will not be through their whole end-to-end cycle of being able to scale up and produce vaccines at a mass scale until 2021. There’s a number of steps that have to happen, obviously, before the regulators in each country are going to approve a vaccine,” Langley said.
“Even though we’re accelerating our work and developing the vaccine more quickly than would normally be the case, we’re still observing all those individual steps.”
WATCH | Vaccines not a ‘silver bullet,’ chief public health officer says
Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam responds to reporter questions about the search for a vaccine for COVID-19. 2:08
No commitment to mandatory vaccine
While securing a vaccine is one challenge, getting people to line up for it will be another.
Survey results from the Angus Reid Institute released this week found that a third of respondents would likely adopt a wait-and-see approach when it comes to receiving the vaccine, while another 14 per cent said they would not get it at all.
But neither Anand nor Langley propose making the vaccine mandatory, even though proof of vaccination for diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella is required for children entering schools in some provinces, including Ontario.
“‘Mandatory’ is a word that can provoke emotional responses in folks,” Langley said. “I don’t think any jurisdiction is in the position where we’re forcing someone to get a vaccine.”
Langley said ensuring successful candidates are effective, allowing Canadians to ask questions about the vaccine, making it easy to receive and providing assurance that the experience won’t be unpleasant will be key to getting a high uptake.
“I think those [measures] are probably going to be more successful than … forcing people or even suggesting that we would ever force people to get vaccines,” Langley said.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
