Province preparing for vaccine rollout as COVID variant appears

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This article was published 22/08/2023 (793 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government says plans are underway for a COVID-19 vaccine rollout this fall, as a rapidly spreading variant that has been identified in the province is monitored by Canadian scientists.

Details of the province’s upcoming vaccine distribution have yet to be unveiled, but a provincial spokesperson said Tuesday more information will be made available in “the coming weeks.”

“The province has already started the process of communicating with physicians and health-care providers about a fall flu and COVID-19 immunization program,” the spokesperson said.

New booster formulas are expected to be available soon to help combat an anticipated increase in COVID-19 infections.

In July, Canada’s national advisory committee on immunization issued guidance that recommended Canadians receive a booster with the new vaccine formula in the fall if it has been at least six months since they last received a booster shot, or at least six months since they were infected with COVID-19.

The committee noted the new boosters will be particularly important for seniors, long-term care residents, people with underlying medical conditions or who are pregnant, people who’ve never had COVID-19, and front-line workers and Indigenous and racialized people, since they are at higher risk of becoming infected.

The pandemic hasn’t been declared over, but in the absence of public-health restrictions and a reliance on individual responsibility, a successful vaccine rollout needs to remind the public who is most at risk.

Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist based at Toronto General Hospital, said jurisdictions will need to have strong fall vaccine campaigns at long-term care homes and in communities where people have been disproportionately affected by the virus.

“It’s really important that we lower all barriers to vaccination for those individuals and for those groups, bringing the vaccine to the people, not bringing people to the vaccine,” Bogoch said.

“There’s great data, sadly, demonstrating that racialized communities and poorer communities were bearing the brunt in terms of hospitalization and death related to COVID.”

Access and outreach is crucial for seniors and others who are most vulnerable to infection, he said.

“I think those are very important things that will really help us through the fall and winter,” he said.

New and emerging variants of the virus are being monitored by Canadian scientists.

The EG.5 subvariant of Omicron, which has been detected in Manitoba, is becoming the dominant strain in other jurisdictions. It’s classified as a variant of interest, not yet a variant of concern, by the World Health Organization.

Yet another variant, BA.2.86 is on the horizon. So far, there are no cases of it in Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed Tuesday. Only a very small number of BA.2.86 cases have been detected around the world. It was listed as a variant under monitoring in last week’s epidemiological update from the World Health Organization, which noted there is not yet enough data to determine its prevalence.

“The Government of Canada has a strong monitoring program in place with the provinces and territories to identify COVID-19 variants in Canada. (PHAC) Scientists, along with national and international experts, are actively monitoring and evaluating BA.2.86 lineages and their associated studies,” a PHAC spokesperson said Tuesday.

Manitoba isn’t winding down its weekly epidemiological reports and continues to track the spread of the virus, a provincial spokesperson said, but small sample sizes are affecting the quality of reportable provincial data. The report was limited at the beginning of July because of small numbers.

“There has been no changes to testing strategies or reporting frequencies. All COVID positive specimens received at (Cadham Provincial Laboratory) are sequenced to identify variants but it is important to note the sample size is currently too small to provide any data of value,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“Manitoba is continuously collaborating with the Public Health Agency of Canada to monitor/evaluate reporting as information becomes available.”

Winnipeg epidemiologist Cynthia Carr said there are strict thresholds for privacy and reliability of epidemiological data before findings can be reported, so it’s likely the provincial findings are too small in number to be reported.

Carr noted waste water surveillance can be a good tool to track viral load and the presence of subvariants, but in order to detect variants early, there has to be sufficient viral load in the waste water.

Waste water data shows a slight increase in north, south and west Winnipeg since mid-July, but the viral load being detected in Winnipeg wastewater samples is still relatively small.

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com