By Peter Loftus Johnson & Johnson said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was 66% effective at protecting people from moderate to severe disease in a large clinical trial, positive results. | February 4, 2021
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday the province had given priority to vaccinations in the neighbourhood after an increase in cases, especially in shelters.
“We have transmission in some of our shelters, in Fraser Health in Surrey and in Vancouver in the Downtown Eastside,” Henry said. “We know in those situations people get much sicker and are more likely to end up in hospital, so we are doing some targeted immunization in those communities.”
Henry added some of the Downtown Eastside cases appear to be related at ongoing outbreaks at St. Paul’s Hospital. “People who live in the Downtown Eastside, when they get sick, they often go to St. Paul’s,” she said.
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ABUJA/NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - For eight years Nigerian housewife Mallama Baraka suffered in silence as the eye disease trachoma, which can blind but is entirely preventable, slowly took its toll.
It started with a watery discharge and a burning, itchy sensation in her eyes. Her eyelids swelled and her eyelashes turned inside them, causing her extreme pain each time she blinked. Over time, she began to see less clearly.
“It became hard for me to do my daily chores . but the clinic is far and it would take time and money to go there. I thought whatever is in my eyes will go away if I keep washing them,” Baraka said by phone from Bali town in eastern Nigeria.
New deadly tick-borne dog disease is on the move
While we continue to be occupied with the COVID pandemic, another life-threatening disease has emerged in northern Australia, one that s cause for considerable alarm for the millions of dog owners around the country.
This disease canine ehrlichiosis is transmitted through the bite of a bacterium-carrying parasite called the brown dog tick . This vector parasite is widespread in warm and humid areas of Australia, and its bite can be potentially fatal for dogs.
Until the first cases were recently discovered last May, Australia was considered free of the disease. However, more than 300 dogs in Western Australian and the Northern Territory have now tested positive for it. There have also been reports, from veterinary workers in the field, of dogs dying without being tested or treated.
The chief of the state's Bureau of Infectious Disease Control joined WMUR on News 9 at 5:30 p.m. to answer viewer questions about the pandemic and the vaccines.