Manitoba’s vaccine task force has promised to do better after a week of glitches and setbacks.
The Manitoba government has said all eligible Manitobans who want the COVID-19 vaccine will get a single dose by the end of June — or as early as May 21 if there is a robust supply — as shipments from the federal government are set to increase substantially over the next 90 days.
Province taps WRHA employee to serve as new director of COVID-19 immunization clinics
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Two months after being hired as the provincial director of COVID-19 immunization clinics, Kurt Janzen is no longer overseeing clinic operations.
Janzen, a long time employee of Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries, was hired for the job in late January for a six to nine month term.
The role primarily involved overseeing the workforce hired for the immunization campaign, scheduling, payroll management and co-ordinating services, a government spokesman previously told the Free Press.
Premier Brian Pallister was asked about Janzen’s status with the COVID-19 immunization campaign at a press conference on Wednesday but declined to comment, saying it was a human resources issue.
“We can confirm that no one was removed from any role,” a government spokesman said in a statement to the Free Press.
Following Janzen’s departure, the director position was immediately backfilled temporarily, and an employee with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has since been seconded to the role full-time, the spokesman said.
The provincial director of COVID-19 immunization clinics reports to the operations lead for the COVID-19 vaccine implementation task force.
This week, Manitoba will receive 95,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including the largest single shipment to date: 54,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the United States.
Despite persistent delays at the mass vaccination clinic at the convention centre over the past week, Johanu Botha, co-lead for the task force, said everyone who went to the site and put up with lengthy lineups, received a shot on the day of their appointment.
“It’s a complex machine and we will make it hum, but I’d like to note that the RBC site is a part of a much larger system,” Botha said. “We had supersites across this province administering doses, pop-ups reaching more remote Manitobans and focused immunization teams deploying to vulnerable Manitobans in congregate living facilities.”
“While issues may arise in one part of our system, and we’ll keep monitoring for them and address them, more and more Manitobans are being immunized every day,” he said.
As of Wednesday, 199,322 doses had been given to people in Manitoba (including on First Nations), which accounts for about 80 per cent of the supply received from Ottawa. Over the next month, the province’s immunization network will have days where as many as 10,000 doses are administered, Botha said.
However, due to data entry backlogs at the Winnipeg vaccination clinic, the number of administered doses reported each day will be delayed 48 to 72 hours. Botha said his team is working to eliminate the backlog by adding data entry clerks.
The next shipment of AstraZeneca vaccine will again be administered at pharmacies and physicians’ offices. This time around, 400 to 500 locations will receive doses.
Provincial officials did not specify Wednesday whether any doses would be allocated to homecare providers or prioritized for people who cannot easily leave their home.
“We are ramping up and planning to preposition all of the necessary supplies with our partners like we did last time, so we can hit the ground running,” Botha said.
In the wake of safety concerns related to the AstraZeneca vaccine, following reports of a rare vaccine-induced blood clotting condition in Europe, the province’s medical lead for the COVID-19 task force again encouraged people who can receive the vaccine based on provincial eligibility criteria, to sign up for the shot.
“These vaccines are safe and effective and that particularly for people who are over 55, the risk of COVID, even the risk of blood clots due to COVID, is much greater than the risk of this very rare of blood clot with low platelets is from the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Dr. Joss Reimer said.
“We wouldn’t be offering this vaccine if we didn’t believe that we were actually providing them with more benefit than we were risk,” Reimer said.
Reimer said the current eligibility criteria for AstraZeneca which prioritized people under 65 years old with select medical conditions, but stops at anyone younger than 55 years old, in accordance with federal recommendations, ensures that those at highest risk of severe outcomes can access a vaccine.
“We don’t expect to see this rare side-effect in Manitoba. But we certainly have already seen severe long lasting outcomes, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID and we want to provide people with a way to protect themselves as quickly as possible,” Reimer said.
She said the province is taking a second look at its AstraZeneca eligibility criteria before releasing more doses to doctors and pharmacists, but will not offer the shot to people younger than 55.
Meanwhile, Botha said the task force is preparing for delays in receiving Moderna vaccines from the federal government.
A confirmed shipment of 28,000 doses of Moderna set to arrive next week has been delayed to at least April 12. Botha said the shipment could arrive as late as April 16. The province may be forced to reschedule pop-up clinics in rural and remote areas.
The province also intends to open a new mass vaccination clinic in each of the five health regions between mid-April and end of May, Botha said. The next supersite will be located in Winnipeg.
“The supply that we have confirmed coming in across Pfizer and Moderna… is 40,000 a week,” Botha said. “But it’s not enough to fill the capacity of our existing supersites so we have a bit of time to get the other ones up.”
Planning is also underway to stage vaccination clinics in Winnipeg on a smaller, community level, over the next three months, 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.
