LONDON —
The U.K. on Monday became the first nation in the world to start using the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and drugmaker AstraZeneca, ramping up a nationwide inoculation program as rising infection rates are putting an unprecedented strain on British hospitals.
Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, received the first shot at 7:30 a.m. at Oxford University Hospital.
“The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant, and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife, Shirley, later this year,” Pinker said in a statement released by the National Health Service.
The rollout of the new vaccine comes at a crucial moment for U.K. authorities, who are battling a surge in infections blamed on a new virus variant that authorities have said is much more contagious. Scotland imposed a lockdown until the end of January amid increasing pressure on officials to tighten restrictions throughout the U.K.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has said tougher measures are imminent, announced a nationwide address at 8 p.m. The UK Parliament will be recalled to sit on Wednesday.
“If you look at the numbers, there’s no question we will have to take tougher measures and we will be announcing those in due course,” Johnson said while visiting some of the people receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at Chase Farm Hospital in north London.
The U.K. is in the midst of an acute outbreak, recording more than 50,000 new coronavirus infections a day over the past six days. On Sunday, it notched up another 54,990 cases and 454 more virus-related deaths to take its confirmed pandemic death toll total to over 75,000, one of the worst in Europe. Some areas northeast of London have infection rates of over 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.
Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon says that beginning Tuesday, people in Scotland will be legally required to stay at home except for essential reasons to help ease the pressure on hospitals and intensive care units.
Under the new lockdown rules in Scotland, people can go out for exercise but can only meet one other person from another household. School closures are extended until February except for children of key workers and children under social care.
“I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year,” she said
Scotland, which has its own devolved government, has often imposed stricter coronavirus restrictions than those in England throughout the pandemic.
U.K. regulators last week authorized emergency use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, giving public health officials a second vaccine in their medical arsenal. Britain’s mass vaccination program began Dec. 8 with the shot developed by New York-based Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
Britain has secured the rights to 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheaper and easier to use than some of its rivals. In particular, it doesn’t require the super-cold storage needed for the Pfizer vaccine.
The new vaccine will be administered at a small number of hospitals for the first few days so authorities can watch out for any adverse reactions. But the NHS said hundreds of new vaccination sites — including local doctors’ offices — will open later this week, joining the more than 700 vaccination sites already in operation.
A “massive ramp-up operation” is now underway in the vaccination program, Johnson said. But aspects of Britain’s vaccination plans have spurred controversy.
Both vaccines require two shots, and Pfizer had recommended that the second dose be given within 21 days of the first. But The U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization said authorities should give the first vaccine dose to as many people as possible, rather than setting aside shots to ensure others receive two doses. It has stretched out the time between the doses from 21 days to within 12 weeks.
While two doses are required to fully protect against COVID-19, both provide high levels of protection after the first dose, the committee said. Making the first dose the priority will “maximize benefits from the vaccination program in the short term,” it said.
Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said policymakers are being forced to balance the potential risks of this change against the benefits in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
“We have a crisis situation in the UK with a new variant spreading rapidly, and as has become clear to everyone during 2020, delays cost lives,” Evans said. “When resources of doses and people to vaccinate are limited, then vaccinating more people with potentially less efficacy is demonstrably better than a fuller efficacy in only half.”
In England alone, 23,557 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Saturday. While figures for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales haven’t been updated in recent days, that’s higher than the U.K.-wide peak during the first wave of the pandemic.
The government closed non-essential shops across London and parts of southeast England before Christmas to try to contain the new variant, but health officials say tougher measures are now needed.
Johnson said there were “tough, tough” weeks to come in the fight against COVID-19. More school closures, curfews and the total banning of household mixing could be on the agenda.
While schools in London are already closed due to high infection rates in the capital, students in many parts of the country were returning to in-person classes Monday after the Christmas holidays. Unions representing teachers, however, have called for schools throughout England to remain closed for at least two weeks, with classes shifted to remote learning.
Professor Andrew Pollard, one of the scientists who led development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, received his shot on Monday.
“It was an incredibly proud moment for me, to have received the actual vaccine that the University of Oxford and the AstraZeneca teams have worked so hard to make available to the U.K. and the world,” he said.
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.
