Emerging Respiratory Virus Update: Avian flu, novel influenza, and MERS-CoV
From BCCDC: MAIN MESSAGES Human infections with avian influenza of various novel subtypes (H7N9, H5N6, H9N2, H5N1) have been reported from China recently, notably H7N9 for which a fourth wave of human cases is currently underway. As previously emphasized, avian influenza viruses, like humanized strains, show winter seasonality. Prior human infections with avian influenza H7N9 and H5N1 that were imported to Canada happened at around this time of year, underscoring the need...
BCCDC Reportable Disease Dashboard
The BC Centre for Disease Control's public health analytics team has created an interactive tool that provides summary statistics on a variety of reportable diseases and conditions in British Columbia. You can now search by disease, health region, and date range to see the geographic distribution, age and sex breakdowns, and the counts and rates for each health authority and health service delivery area for the selected disease. The reportable diseases dashboard...
Lyme disease risk analysis
Researchers with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control have just completed the province’s first systemic analysis of the threat of Lyme disease carried by certain types of ticks. Dr. Muhammad Morshed, program head of zoonotic diseases and emerging pathogens at the B.C. CDC, said 150 traps were placed at 12 different locations around the province — Belcarra, Burnaby Mountain, Coquitlam, Cranbrook, Cultus Lake, Duncan, Nanaimo, Okanagan, Penticton, Sechelt, Squamish and West...
Paper pubished on Canadian surveillance of EV-D68
Today the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) in collaboration with each of the local health authorities in BC and partners in Alberta, Quebec and nationally at the Public Health Agency of Canada published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal EuroSurveillance describing epidemic features of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) in Canada during the fall of 2014. For the full publication (open access), see: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=21283. For a synopsis, see below. Why and how the investigation...