Health
UK extends COVID vaccine booster program amid 'storm clouds' – Squamish Chief
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Monday of a “blizzard” of new coronavirus infections coming into the U.K. from continental Europe, as his government extended the vaccine booster program to younger people in an effort to bolster waning immunity levels during the winter months.
With concerns mounting about a new wave of the pandemic in Europe, the independent body of scientists that makes vaccine recommendations to the British government said people aged 40 to 49 will also be eligible for a vaccine booster shot six months after their initial shot.
Up until now, people aged 50 and over, as well as those working in hospitals and care homes, and younger people deemed to be vulnerable, had been eligible for the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine boosters.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization also said that second doses of the Pfizer vaccine have also been approved for 16 and 17-year-olds 12 weeks after their first. There has been no change in the advise for 12-15-year-olds, with the U.K. still only offering a single dose of vaccine.
It said the the broadening of the booster campaign and the offer of a second jab to older teenagers will “help extend our protection into 2022.”
Accepting the recommendations, Johnson urged people to get their booster to get the extra level of protection as pandemic “storm clouds” were gathering over Europe, which has seen fresh lockdowns imposed in Austria and the Netherlands.
“A new wave of COVID has steadily swept through central Europe and is now affecting our nearest neighbours in Western Europe,” he said. “Our friends on the continent have been forced to respond with various degrees of new restrictions, from full lockdowns, to lockdowns for the unvaccinated, to restrictions on business opening hours and restrictions on social gatherings.”
Compared to most other countries in Europe, the U.K. has recorded high, but relatively stable, levels of coronavirus infections in recent months following the lifting of most restrictions in the summer. However, in the past few weeks, a number of European countries have seen sharp infection spikes, prompting renewed concerns about the outlook for the U.K.
“We don’t yet know the extent to which this new wave will wash up on our shores, but history shows we cannot afford to be complacent,” Johnson said.
There have been signs over the past few days of a renewed uptick in cases in the U.K. particularly among students. More than 260,000 confirmed infections were recorded in the past week, up 6% on the previous week.
The government has so far resisted reimposing mandatory laws such as requiring people to wear masks indoors or introducing vaccine passports.
Johnson said there was nothing currently in the data which suggested a need to increase restrictions in England, under its contingency Plan B though he would not rule out more restrictions if the pressure on the National Health Service becomes untenable. Currently, the number of people in hospital with the virus is around 8,500, which though high is far down on the near 40,000 in January. Daily COVID deaths are running at around 150, taking the total to nearly 143,000, Europe’s second highest behind Russia.
A raft of evidence over recent weeks has shown that immunity levels among double-jabbed individuals starts to wane a few months after the second dose of vaccine, though they are still far less likely to suffer severe disease than those who are unvaccinated.
“What’s happening is if you can get your booster then your immunity goes right back up to 95%,” he said. “So far we’ve got 75% of everybody over 70 getting a booster, that’s a huge number of people, but it’s that further 25% that will make all the difference to winter, to Christmas, to our plans going forward, because it’s that extra level of protection that we really need.”
The expansion of the booster program comes as a new study from the U.K. Health Security Agency showed adults over 50 had at least 93% reduced risk of getting a symptomatic case of COVID-19 two weeks after their booster.
The government’s chief medical adviser, Chris Whitty, said more restrictions may be necessary if cases start to rise at the same pace as some countries in Europe.
“They’re not currently going up in the kind of numbers you’re seeing in continental Europe, but obviously if they did that would be a situation where we would have to look again,” he said.
“I think we have got a difficult winter ahead of us,” he added.
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Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
Pan Pylas, The Associated Press
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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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