Health
Surveillance for blacklegged ticks will be expanded outside Thunder Bay
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THUNDER BAY — Active surveillance for blacklegged ticks that have the potential to spread Lyme disease will expand to areas outside Thunder Bay starting next year.
Ticks can infect humans and animals with the bacteria that causes Lyme disease and a variety of serious health impacts.
The Thunder Bay District Health Unit already conducts active surveillance for ticks, using the proven method of dragging a white cloth sheet across the ground, to which ticks attach themselves and are easily spotted.
In 2023, the program will grow significantly with the support of the Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network.
Thunder Bay is a new addition to its list of “sentinel regions” being monitored across the country.
Funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research supported the launch of the network in 2018, followed a year later by the Canadian Lyme Sentinel Network.
It’s a multidisciplinary project involving patients, doctors, social scientists, veterinarians and academic and government researchers focused on improving the diagnosis, surveillance, prevention and treatment of Lyme disease.
One of the first initiatives was the establishment of a national surveillance structure to collect comparable data using standardized methods.
Ken Deacon, coordinator of the Thunder Bay District Health Unit’s vector-borne disease program, said Thunder Bay’s inclusion in the program means that active monitoring for blacklegged ticks will take place next year in five rural areas.
The chosen sites include:
- Sleeping Giant Provincial Park
- Hazelwood Lake
- Upsala (provisional – may be changed)
- Cloud Lake
- Rabbit Mountain off Belrose Road
Blacklegged ticks have never been identified in the first four spots, but the Rabbit Mountain site is what Deacon described as “our guaranteed location” for them, based on several years of ongoing active surveillance.
On Oct. 25, a public health inspector working with a student located 18 blacklegged ticks at Rabbit Mountain in a period of only 45 minutes.
Deacon called that extraordinary, saying the ticks were “super-active” for whatever reason — possibly the mild weather.
“It just goes to show that you have to be at the right place at the right time. If you happen to be walking your dog or going for a hike, this could be very unfortunate for you,” he said.
All 18 ticks have been shipped to a federal lab in Winnipeg for testing for Lyme disease.
“At this time of year, most people think they are safe, but ticks are active right up to 4 C. Today we’re talking about 15 C,” Deacon said in a Monday interview.
He emphasized that personal protection remains necessary unless there is snow on the ground.
If blacklegged ticks are collected at any of the new monitoring sites, Deacon said it will be an indication the population is spreading.
In the case of Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, “It’s under a flyway, so there are migratory birds going through, and there’s a good chance they will be dropping off blacklegged ticks.”
Thunder Bay was declared a risk area for Lyme disease by Public Health Ontario in 2019.
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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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