Physicians are calling for Canada’s chief medical officers of health to be given greater independence from provincial governments following the recent firing of New Brunswick’s medical officer, Dr. Eilish Cleary, for reasons that remain unknown. “The position is too important to allow people to be arbitrarily dismissed,” says Dr. James Talbot, the former chief medical officer of […]
public health
Ebola needed better coordinated Canadian response
Canada needs to step up its game when responding to international disease outbreaks, says New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, who spent more than six months in Africa with the World Health Organization during the Ebola outbreak. Dr. Eilish Cleary was disappointed that the Public Health Agency of Canada was not able to deploy teams […]
Sewage Bacteria Reveal Cities’ Obesity Rates
Urban ‘microbiome’ can offer glimpses into disease trends. Sampling the waste in a city’s sewage system can be a good way to study the microbes that live in the population’s guts – and could even offer a way to monitor public health issues such as obesity, according to new research. The community of microbes that […]
Rare enterovirus continues to circulate in North America
D68, an uncommon strain of enterovirus, has caused an unexpectedly high number of respiratory illnesses across the USA and has now appeared in Canada. A rare strain of enterovirus that can cause severe respiratory illness in children is circulating throughout the USA and Canada, causing a higher than usual number of infections. Between mid-August and […]