Groundbreaking national health survey starting soon

In the next few days, a groundbreaking national health survey is planned to be starting in British Columbia.

The survey is initiated to discover what kinds of toxic chemicals are present in Canadians' bodies, as well as examining other health issues such as obesity and disease other diseases.
Nearly 700 residents in the province will be surveyed.

By the end of 2008, more than 5,000 Canadians between the ages of 6 and 79 will have been tested.
Participants must agree to a series of physical exams, fitness testing and blood and urine tests. They'll also be required to wear an activity monitor for seven days.

According to Jeanine Bustros, the director of the physical health measures division of Statistics Canada, the survey could have major significance for health policy, depending on the findings.

"This survey will allow us, for the first time, to have a benchmark," she said.

"To be able to measure: Are we getting better? Are we getting worse?, in terms of the levels of contaminants in the Canadian population."

StatsCan will put the findings together for Health Canada and Canada's Public Health Agency. The results will become the first-ever comprehensive health study that directly measures things like obesity, lung function, chronic disease and levels of toxic chemicals in the blood.

Individual health results will be , but will be provided to participants who request them, within weeks of testing.

Only Canadians who are contacted by Statistics Canada are eligible to participate.
The results of the survey are confidential and protected by privacy laws, but will be given to participants within weeks after testing on request.

Source: CBC News

Surgical masks insufficient protection during flu pandemic

In a report released yesterday, a panel of experts said that surgical masks aren't adequate to protect people from becoming infected during an influenza pandemic,

The report, written for the Public Health Agency of Canada, suggested industrial respirators known as N95s, would be needed to minimize the risk of transmission of flu.

"Surgical masks don't really fit the bill," said Dr. Donald Low, chair of the panel which brought together infection control specialists, nurses and occupational health and safety experts.

"Even if they have a good filtering capacity, inhalable virus particles will take the route of least resistance, which will be around the mask and through the gap that exists between the surgical mask and the face, just because they're not affected by gravity"

The panel was asked to advise the public health agency on one of the most contentious issues in influenza science - how flu spreads.

The answer will be used to craft guidance for provinces and territories on what protective equipment they should consider stockpiling for health care workers in a pandemic as well as advice for the public on how to reduce the risk of getting sick in such an event.

Read the rest of the article from the Canadian Press here

11th Case of Mad Cow Disease confirmed in Alberta

Yesterday, Canada confirmed a new case of mad cow disease (also called BSE), the country's 11th case since the disease was first discovered there in 2003.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said no part of the cow's carcass entered the human food or animal feed chains and is therefore no threat to the public health.

The animal was identified as a 13-year-old cow from Alberta by the national monitoring program, which targets cattle most at risk for the disease also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy and has tested about 190,000 animals since 2003.

The animal, from an unidentified farm, was born before the implementation of Canada's feed ban in 1997.

They expect to detect a small number of cases over the next 10 years as Canada progresses toward its goal of eliminating the disease from the national cattle herd.

"This detection confirms the ongoing high level of commitment and stewardship on the part of Canadian cattle producers to food safety and animal health," the CFIA said in a statement, saying it did not expect the latest discovery to affect Canada's international standing as a country with a controlled risk for BSE.

Eating meat products with infected tissue is linked to a rare, fatal illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, that has killed more than 150 people worldwide, most of them in Britain.

The Associated Press

Editor:

"The government states that the 11th case was reported last May 2nd, which means the latest one is the 12th case!"

5 Albertans ill after mumps shot: Health Canada halts use vaccine

Today, Canada suspended use of three batches of a mumps vaccine after five people fell ill in the midst of a vaccination campaign in the western province of Alberta.

Health Canada advised against the use of the three lots of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine sold by MerckFrosst Canada, while it investigates five suspected cases of anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction characterized by swelling and difficulty breathing.

All five cases involved adults aged 20 to 30 in Alberta who had a previous history of allergy. All have fully recovered.

Canadian officials are now trying to determine if the vaccine may be having the same adverse reaction elsewhere

A joint investigation by Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Alberta is being carried out in conjunction with distributor MerckFrosst Canada. It is soliciting reports of adverse effects from other countries that use the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine MMR-II.

Parent Merck & Co Inc markets the vaccine in the European Union, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Argentina, Russia, the United States, and elsewhere.

"Because all of our vaccine producers now are all global, then we also reach out globally to determine whether or not there are any other adverse events or clusters of adverse events that people are seeing elsewhere related to this product, or related to any of these lots that may be gone elsewhere," said Dr. Arlene King, a director with the Public Health Agency.

King said Canadian officials would also be contacting regulatory authorities in other countries.

Read the full story at the Reuters website.

Aghan bug threat: federal authorities warn hospitals

Federal authorities are warning hospitals across the country to beware of a highly drug resistant bacteria that wounded troops are bringing back from Afghanistan and that could inadvertently be spread to civilian patients.

The threat posed by the resistant strain of acinetobacter baumannii underlines the health care system's general lack of readiness for such emerging infections as they arrive in the country, said a senior Public Health Agency of Canada official.

Several soldiers being treated in civilian hospitals here have already developed pneumonia from the drug-resistant strain of the bacteria, which scientists say likely originated in the Canadian-led trauma centre at Kandahar Air Field.

Hospitals are being advised by the agency to screen injured soldiers for the bug, and take infection-control precautions if they test positive.

No transmission to non-military patients has been detected yet, and the bug is not seen as much of a danger to healthy people outside of hospital.
The fear, however, is that the resistant strain could genetically combine with more easily treatable versions of the bacteria that are more common in Canadian intensive-care units, said Shirley Paton of the public-health agency.

"We're seeing a new organism being introduced into the Canadian swamp of organisms, this one being highly resistant," she said.

"If we get someone with this highly resistant strain, are the two bugs going to get together into one? ... We're quite concerned that this will start spreading and become the acinetobacter of choice in the ICUs. We're really worried about that kind of transmission."

Read the full story in The National Post