Health
Quebec, New Brunswick stop offering first doses of AstraZeneca vaccine
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Quebec and New Brunswick will no longer offer first doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, but will offer second doses using current supplies and future deliveries, the provinces said on Thursday.
Most provinces made similar announcements on Monday and Tuesday, mainly citing concerns about supply, though officials in Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick said the move was also based on a rise in the incidence of rare blood clots linked to first doses of the vaccine.
Canada‘s vaccine supply has expanded significantly in recent weeks, mostly thanks to shipments from Pfizer. The country has distributed just over 20 million doses of various COVID vaccines, and 11.6% were AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
Officials have said that people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine may be offered a second dose of another vaccine, an approach that is being studied in the United Kingdom and has been allowed in Germany since early April.
Even so, Canada received 655,000 doses of a version of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India on Thursday through the global vaccine buying system COVAX, and will begin distributing to provinces in coming days, officials said.
Provincial medical officers are in “very active discussions” about how many more AstraZeneca shots they needed for second doses, deputy chief public health officer Howard Njoo told reporters.
The country’s decision to accept doses from COVAX has drawn criticism, as COVAX is the only way for many low-income countries to buy vaccines, and badly short of doses to distribute. Serum has cut exports in the face of a catastrophic surge of cases in India.
Officials have linked three deaths to the AstraZeneca vaccine in Canada.
Health Canada says those who receive the vaccine should seek medical attention immediately if they experience shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling, persistent belly pain, neurological symptoms like severe headaches or blurred vision, or skin bruising or tiny blood spots under the skin beyond the site of the injection.
(Reporting by Allison Martell, additional reporting by Steve Scherer, Editing by Franklin Paul and David Gregorio)
Health
RCMP warn about benzodiazepine-laced fentanyl tied to overdose in Alberta – Edmonton Journal
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Grande Prairie RCMP issued a warning Friday after it was revealed fentanyl linked to a deadly overdose was mixed with a chemical that doesn’t respond to naloxone treatment.
The drugs were initially seized on Feb. 28 after a fatal overdose, and this week, Health Canada reported back to Mounties that the fentanyl had been mixed with Bromazolam, which is a benzodiazepine.
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Mounties say this is the first recorded instance of Bromazolam in Alberta. The drug has previously been linked to nine fatal overdoses in New Brunswick in 2022.
The pills seized in Alberta were oval-shaped and stamped with “20” and “SS,” though Mounties say it can come in other forms.
Naloxone treatment, given in many cases of opioid toxicity, is not effective in reversing the effects of Bromazalam, Mounties said, and therefore, any fentanyl mixed with the benzodiazepine “would see a reduced effectiveness of naloxone, requiring the use of additional doses and may still result in a fatality.”
From January to November of last year, there were 1,706 opioid-related deaths in Alberta, and 57 linked to benzodiazepine, up from 1,375 and 43, respectively, in 2022.
Mounties say officers responded to about 1,100 opioid-related calls for service, last year with a third of those proving fatal. RCMP officers also used naloxone 67 times while in the field, a jump of nearly a third over the previous year.
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Health
CFIA continues surveillance for HPAI in cattle, while sticking with original name for disease – RealAgriculture
The Canada Food Inspection Agency will continue to refer to highly pathogenic avian influenza in cattle as HPAI in cattle, and not refer to it as bovine influenza A virus (BIAV), as suggested by the American Association of Bovine Practitioners earlier this month.
Dr. Martin Appelt, senior director for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, in the interview below, says at this time Canada will stick with “HPAI in cattle” when referencing the disease that’s been confirmed in dairy cattle in multiple states in the U.S.
The CFIA’s naming policy is consistent with the agency’s U.S. counterparts’, as the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has also said it will continue referring to it as HPAI or H5N1.
Appelt explains how the CFIA is learning from the U.S. experience to-date, and how it is working with veterinarians across Canada to stay vigilant for signs of the disease in dairy and beef cattle.
As of April 19, there has not been a confirmed case of HPAI in cattle in Canada. Appelt says it’s too soon to say if an eventual positive case will significantly restrict animal movement, as is the case with positive poultry cases.
This is a major concern for the cattle industry, as beef cattle especially move north and south across the U.S. border by the thousands. Appelt says that CFIA will address an infection in each species differently in conjunction with how the disease is spread and the threat to neighbouring farms or livestock.
Currently, provincial dairy organizations have advised producers to postpone any non-essential tours of dairy barns, as a precaution, in addition to other biosecurity measures to reduce the risk of cattle contracting HPAI.
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Health
Toronto reports 2 more measles cases. Use our tool to check the spread in Canada – Toronto Star
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Canada has seen a concerning rise in measles cases in the first months of 2024.
By the third week of March, the country had already recorded more than three times the number of cases as all of last year. Canada had just 12 cases of measles in 2023, up from three in 2022.
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