Province secures larger supply of flu vaccine this year, will make shots available to all Ontarians next month - CP24 Toronto's Breaking News | Canada News Media
Connect with us

Health

Province secures larger supply of flu vaccine this year, will make shots available to all Ontarians next month – CP24 Toronto's Breaking News

Published

 on


Ontario’s health minister says the provincial government is spending nearly $90 million this year to purchase 7.6 million doses of the flu shot, an increase of more than a million doses over last year.

Speaking to reporters at a Toronto pharmacy on Tuesday morning, Deputy Premier and Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province is launching a larger flu shot campaign this season than last, purchasing 1.4 million more doses this year.

She noted that Ontario is prioritizing high-risk groups first but that the flu shot will be available to all Ontarians next month.

“As Ontario’s flu supply is delivered in multiple shipments and the schedule is determined by the federal government and manufacturers, the province’s initial supply of the flu vaccine was used to protect long-term care home residents and hospital patients,” she said.

“This month, flu shots are available for seniors, children between six months and four years old, pregnant women, and other individuals at high risk of flu complications.”

She said 1.8 million doses have been earmarked specifically for seniors.

“In November, we will continue to receive the flu vaccine in multiple shipments so we encourage everyone to be patient and call ahead to ensure the flu shot is available at your doctor’s office or at your neighbourhood pharmacy,” she said.

After launching what the province called the largest flu shot campaign in Ontario’s history last year, widespread flu shot shortages were reported at many pharmacies throughout the province.

It is unclear if the additional doses this year will be enough to keep up with increasing demand for flu shots amid a global pandemic.

“Last year, millions of Ontarians took advantage of the free flu shot and we saw historically low rates of flu across the entire province,” Elliott said.

She added that last year the province had only 25 lab-confirmed cases of the flu, a massive drop compared to previous flu seasons where thousands of cases are confirmed in a single year.

While Elliott attributed that drop to the effectiveness of last year’s flu vaccine, public health restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic very likely played a much more significant role in the decline in flu infections.

Elliott said those who are not yet fully immunized against COVID-19 can get their first or second jab at the same time as their flu shot.

“As we head into the fall and begin gathering indoors more often with family and friends, it is even more important to get your flu shot,” she said, adding that the province must protect its health-care system from overcrowding as it continues to battle COVID-19.

Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam warned last week that while last year’s flu season was “virtually non-existent” in the country, Canadians should prepare for the possibility of a resurgence due to lower levels of immunity and the easing of public health restrictions.

“This is definitely not the year to have influenza wreak havoc,” Tam said Friday.

-With files from The Canadian Press

Adblock test (Why?)



Source link

Continue Reading

Health

Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

Published

 on

 

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.”

___

AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.

___

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.

Source link

Continue Reading

Health

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

Published

 on

 

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.

___

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.

Source link

Continue Reading

Health

Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten

Published

 on

Product Name: Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.

Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

(more…)

Continue Reading

Trending

Exit mobile version