TORONTO — Ontario family doctors called Tuesday be more involved in the COVID-19 vaccination effort, saying they could boost uptake, but the government said their participation would be limited to a supply-dependent pilot project for now.
The president of the Ontario Medical Association said the time is right for broader involvement of family doctors, who have only been participating in select public health units, now that Ontario is expecting more vaccines that don’t require extreme cold storage.
“I think it’s time to significantly empower family doctors to protect their patients,” Dr. Samantha Hill, president of the Ontario Medical Association said in an interview. “We do that by sending significant quantities of all of the non-Pfizer vaccines, whatever comes to our doors next, to primary care doctors so that they can meet this next phase of demand.”
Hill said family doctors are well-positioned to help people who are unable to travel to mass clinics, vaccine hesitant people and people at higher risk of infections.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians said primary-care doctors could push overall participation in the province’s immunization program to nearly 90 per cent.
In making its case, the group said it had conducted a survey that found 60 per cent of vaccine-hesitant respondents were more likely to get immunized if a family doctor endorsed and administered their shot.
Some family physicians in six regions are currently offering Oxford-AstraZeneca shots to patients aged 60 and older as part of a pilot project. As of Tuesday, the government said those doctors had used about half of the 29,000 doses they had been sent.
The program is currently operating in Toronto, Peel Region, Hamilton, Guelph, Peterborough and Simcoe-Muskoka, with doctors calling eligible patients to schedule appointments.
Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said the program will expand, but she couldn’t specify to where or when because the government doesn’t yet know when more doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will arrive.
Jones didn’t rule out eventually having family doctors administer the Moderna vaccine as well, but said the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot was best suited for primary care physicians for now.
“It is frankly a little easier vaccine to be able to move around, to store, so that is why we have put it with the primary care practitioners,” she said. “As we see supplies increase, then those conversations can continue, but right now it is AstraZeneca.”
The U.S. is expected to send 1.5 million Oxford-AstraZeneca shots to Canada before the end of the month.
Opposition politicians criticized the government for failing to fully involve family doctors in the vaccination effort.
“They’ve been left on the on the sidelines and I think that was a miscalculation by the government,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
Liberal health critic John Fraser said the government shouldn’t still be running pilot projects at this point.
“You need a plan and you need to execute it,” he said.
At least one Ontario health unit said Tuesday that it will have some family doctors administer the Moderna vaccine as part of a local pilot project. Four primary care groups in Lambton Public Health will receive a total of 2,600 doses that will go to patients with high-risk chronic health conditions.
Ontario’s supply of the Moderna vaccine is expected to increase in the coming weeks. The province says 97,000 doses are coming this week, and between 220,000 and more than 440,000 weekly doses are expected over the next three weeks.
Jones said some of the incoming Moderna supply will go to pharmacies in the Toronto, Kingston and Windsor regions that are currently offering the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines to people 60 and older.
The pharmacies in that pilot project have used more than 70 per cent of the 165,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca doses they received earlier in the month, the government said Tuesday.
Jones said the province still plans to expand the pharmacy project, although the government has not yet specified which other regions it will grow to.
The government also reminded residents Tuesday not to show up for vaccination appointments far ahead of schedule.
Lineups at some mass vaccination sites were reported in Toronto as the city vaccinates residents aged 75 and older. Local officials have urged those with appointments to show up only shortly before their time-slot, a call Jones repeated.
“People are excited to get the vaccine, they want to have that first shot and I can’t blame them,” she said. “We have regularly asked people not to arrive two or three hours early for your vaccine.”
The government also pledged on Tuesday to spend $3.7 million to help seniors and Ontarians with disabilities get vaccinated by helping transport them to immunization sites and, in some cases, bringing shots to them.
Ontario outlined strategies for vaccinating priority groups in the next phase of the rollout set to begin in April. The phase will offer shots to people who are considered at risk due to their age, job, neighbourhood or health condition.
A document shared with health units and clinics broke down categories of people who can’t work from home. It encouraged workplace vaccinations and said employers should consider letting workers use paid time off to get their shots.
The government advised health units to work with communities to make vaccines accessible in hot spot neighbourhoods.
It also advised clinics to develop lists of backup recipients for remaining doses if people don’t show up to appointments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2021.
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.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
