Health
Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer calls for residents to get flu shots
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As flu season rolls into Saskatchewan, the province’s Chief Medical Health Officer is urging people to get their shots.
As of Thursday, roughly 15 per cent of Saskatchewan residents received an influenza vaccine.
The Community Respiratory Illness Surveillance Program (CRISP) reported on Thursday that influenza cases have been on the rise with 61 per cent of cases in kids and youth up to 19 years old.
“With an increase of respiratory illnesses this fall, including influenza, all residents should get up-to-date with available vaccinations,” provincial Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said.
“In Saskatchewan, we are fortunate to have safe and effective vaccines for influenza and COVID-19. However, COVID-19 is not the flu and COVID-19 vaccines will not protect you from influenza. The best way to protect yourself and your family against influenza is to get the annual flu shot.”
Shahab said he advises people to wear masks, but noted that a school mandate for masks may not help.
He said he has talked with medical health officers and a mask mandate probably isn’t feasible at this point.
“Never say never to anything.”
”A number of respiratory illnesses are currently putting pressure on Saskatchewan’s acute care system,” Shahab said.
“The best way to protect yourself against influenza is to be immunized layered with common sense measures like staying home when sick, washing your hands frequently and choosing to wear a mask when you feel it appropriate.”
The flu shots can be received at participating pharmacies, Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) clinics, and some physician and nurse practitioner offices.
Dr. Athena McConnell, who is a Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist, said there are more kids coming into the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital emergency than over the summer, adding that a relaxation of COVID-19 measures and a shortage of children’s pain medication is contributing to the higher numbers.
“When we have families who don’t have access to Tylenol and Advil to lower their kids’ fever, there is going to be more anxiety. And some of that is going to drive families to bring their children into emergency… because they don’t have the measures at home to be able to care for those children at home,” McConnell said.
The Saskatoon Public School Division stated they are seeing an increase in absences due to illness compared to their last average school year in 2019.
The administrator of Safe Schools Saskatchewan says parents expressed a major concern about feeling pressured to send kids to school when the parents and the teachers know the kids should not be there because they’re just spreading more viruses.
“There’s pressure for working parents to use the school as a daycare,” said Margi Corbett, who is also a retired teacher. “There’s pressure for teachers to allow kids to stay in all day and not send them home halfway through the day because their parents aren’t home. There’s a lot of pressure just on the number of absentees … parents and teachers are feeling the pressure.”
Corbett says she would like to see masking mandated in all indoor spaces and to see improved ventilation in classrooms.
— With files from Jeanelle Mandes
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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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