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Back-to-school and meningitis B vaccine
Norrie Matthews, whose 19-year-old son tragically died from meningitis B over two years ago, is advocating for parents to prioritize the vaccination of their children against the disease ahead of the school year.
Meningitis B, an uncommon yet highly lethal form of the disease, has the potential to cause severe and life-threatening complications upon contraction. This unfortunate reality was experienced by Kai Matthews, who was a student of kinesiology at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.
“We lost our son, Kai Matthews, in June of 2021 to meningitis B. After we lost Kai, we were completely blindsided by the fact that we thought we had vaccinated him when he was in Grade 7 for meningitis,” Matthews said.
Kai got the quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine (for groups A, C, Y and W) against meningitis. But it doesn’t cover meningitis B. A separate vaccine for B is needed, but it’s costly and needs a doctor’s request.
While meningitis can affect anyone, younger individuals and students are particularly vulnerable due to their shared living environments on campuses, as well as their tendency to share personal items like utensils, drinks and cigarettes.
The bacteria causing meningitis spread through respiratory droplets from carriers, especially through close and extended contact. This is why communal living situations can facilitate the disease’s transmission.
Read more about Kai’s story and how to protect yourself against meningitis B.
Why energy shots have dodged Canada’s latest recall
In recent months, Canada has witnessed a sweeping recall of energy drinks due to concerns over high caffeine content and mislabelling. This recall has led to the removal of a number of brands from store shelves across the country.
However, what remains puzzling to some health experts is that some beverages with even higher caffeine levels are still readily available for purchase.
Energy shots, such as 5-hour Energy, are tiny bottles that give a concentrated dose of caffeine. Despite sharing similar ingredients with energy drinks, energy shots are allowed higher caffeine levels than standard energy drinks, which must have less than 180 milligrams of caffeine per serving to be sold in Canada.
Energy shots, in contrast, may contain up to 200 milligrams of caffeine per serving.
David Hammond, a professor in the School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, argues the two beverages are pretty much the same, and as such, should be regulated the same.
“You consume it the same way. And ironically, it’s one of the products that’s been associated with certain risks,” Hammond said.
Read more about energy shots, their impact on health and the reason behind Health Canada’s distinct regulatory approach for these beverages.
“We’re starting to see an uptick in cases after a pretty long decline. We saw really an impressive drop in the number of infections that started right at the end of 2022 and continued all the way to the middle of this summer,” said Dr. Fahad Razak, an internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
“Over the last few weeks, we’ve started to see that rise again.… It’s that expected rise. I think nothing of that is surprising to any of us that, after a period of decline as the virus continues to mutate, you’ll have a period where you start to have that increase again.”
He added that Canada is “likely at the start of a new wave,” but how big it will get remains unknown.
The uptick in cases is not just in Canada.
On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases in countries in the Northern Hemisphere over the past months, which it called “concerning.”
“Northern Hemisphere regions where we are in our summer period … and that is not expected when you are thinking of a respiratory pathogen like influenza that typically has peaks in the winter months,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on the COVID-19 response, said during a media briefing.
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