Swine Flu Vaccine Linked to Narcolepsy

Health authorities in Finland are sure H1N1 vaccines are the cause of a marked increase in the number of cases of narcolepsy among their youth. The assertion is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which are: 1) a similar increase in narcolepsy among unvaccinated youth in other parts of Scandinavia; 2) no observed narcolepsy increase anywhere else the vaccine was administered.

Read more...

Infectious Disease in History: The Fever Sheds

St. Patrick's Day is coming up, and I've been working on a number of articles about Irish migrations to North America. That inevitably brings up the subject of the Potato Famine, but contrary to what many of us believe a large number of Irish had already arrived in Canada well before the famine began.

Still, infectious disease was an issue for earlier waves of Irish migrants. The second cholera pandemic travelled from India and China into Russia, then on to France and across the Channel to England. Within weeks, it had spread to both Scotland and Ireland. The disease was not stopped by borders, changes in weather, or even quarantines.

Cholera was a recently discovered disease, fatal in 50% or more cases. And it had never been seen in the Western Hemisphere. The quarantine station at Grosse Île, Quebec was set up to deal with the threat of cholera in 1832. Despite the precautions taken here and abroad, the disease continued to spread. Thousands died in the fever sheds that were built when quarantine facilities at hospitals overflowed well beyond capacity.

During the years of the Great Famine typhus, also called "ship's fever," was the main culprit. The people leaving Ireland were already weakened from poverty and famine, and they were crowded into ships that were unfit for human transport. Many died during the long voyage across the Atlantic, and the French Canadians in Quebec are known for adopting the many Irish Catholic orphans whose parents perished before they reached North America.

Quarantines were again put into place in reaction to the typhus outbreak, but the facilities at Grosse Île were so overwhelmed that ships were sent on to Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto. Quarantines were enforced by the military, for fear the sick would escape and spread infection even further. Thousands upon thousands died, and were buried hastily in mass graves.

Somewhere between 3,500 and 6,000 bodies were buried in an unmarked grave at Windmill Point, near the Port of Montreal. When Irish labourers came to the area years later, a tent city was erected to house them during the building of the Victoria Bridge. The inhabitants of "Goose Village" (officially Victoriatown) discovered the grave, and placed a 30 ton stone on the site to commemorate the loss of their countrymen. The "Black Rock" monument is one of only three landmarks that was not destroyed when Goose Village was bulldozed in the 1960s.

This content is copyrighted. Please feel free to share by sending others a link to this page, or contact the author about purchasing reprint rights. Many thanks to Gilles Douaire for sharing his photo of the Black Rock, that we all might learn more of our heritage.

Teaching Staff Get Preventative Leave to Avoid Harmful Viruses

Our son's integration aide from last year is not with him again this year, which is a disappointment because we all worked so well together. But yesterday I discovered it's because she's out on preventative leave due to pregnancy. That may signal bad news to some people, but because Quebec has a special program that allows women to take leave to avoid environmental hazards including exposure to potentially harmful viruses, many teachers and support staff here take this leave. It keeps those growing babies extra safe! Here's more about it:

Fifth disease is also known as the "slapped cheek" disease because of the rash that develops on the faces on infected people. It is a highly contagious illness, caused by human parvovirus B19 and most often seen in younger children. While fifth disease is a very mild illness for most children and adults, if a pregnant woman gets the infection it can cause complications for her unborn baby. The infection can create severe anemia in the fetus, causing miscarriage or stillbirth.


Because the disease is common in children, pregnant women working in childcare facilities, preschools or primary schools are at elevated risk for exposure to the virus. There is no vaccine for fifth disease, and really no method of prevention other than avoidance of infected people and a good hand washing regime. A unique program in Quebec offers protection for the unborn babies of women who do not have immunities built up against fifth disease infection.


Preventive reassignment or leave


Quebec offers the only government-run North American program that allows women paid leave during pregnancy or breastfeeding for preventative reasons. The program receives almost 130 requests each week from around the province. Of those requests, 9 percent come from teachers at the preschool and primary levels.

Read more...

Photo: Brent Allison (@sxc.hu)

What is a Pandemic?

Classifying Infectious Diseases as Pandemics
 
The word pandemic comes to us from the Greeks. Pan- means "all" and demos means "the people," so a pandemic is an infectious disease outbreak with the potential to affect all people over a large geographic region, or even worldwide. In epidemiology, a pandemic is distinguished from an endemic (a stable but communicable disease like chickenpox in North America) and from an epidemic (an infectious disease spreading more than expected, but restricted to a smaller geographic region.)

Classification of a pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) uses a 6-phase pandemic classification index. Risk is low in phase 1 (animal infections only) and phase 2 (limited animal-to-human transmission) of an infectious disease outbreak. At phase 3 there may also be limited human-to-human transmission. Phase 4 sees human-to-human transmission in a "community-level outbreak." Phase 5 sees the disease spread to at least two countries within a single WHO administrative region. Only at phase 6, which involves spread to a second geographic region, is a pandemic officially declared.

A misunderstanding of what constitutes a pandemic has led to criticism over how the WHO handled the 2009 H1N1 global pandemic. The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have developed a 5-category Pandemic Severity Index (PSI) that responds to the public's desire for information on severity of individual cases of a disease. All infectious disease outbreaks measured on the PSI are pandemics, however the scale puts into perspective the destructive potential of a disease. It allows comparison of a new pandemic, like the 2009 swine flu, with past ones such as the much more deadly 1918 Spanish flu.

Read more....