Health IQ: Canada’s flu shot is getting a makeover

The vanishing flu strain

A strain of seasonal influenza has vanished from global circulation since March 2020, leading Canada’s health officials to revamp the flu vaccine.

The B/Yamagata influenza strain, once a dominant force among influenza B viruses, may have vanished entirely due to the stringent measures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).

Due to the strain’s disappearance, NACI announced on July 26 that Canada’s flu vaccine will shift from a quadrivalent to a trivalent formula over the upcoming years.

Before the strain disappeared, there were four strains of seasonal influenza circulating: two from influenza A (H1N1 and H3N2) and two from influenza B (B/Victoria and B/Yamagata). Since the 2014 to 2015 flu season, Canada has used quadrivalent influenza vaccines containing all four strains.

“During the darkest days of COVID, we stopped detecting one of the two influenza B strains and that was B/Yamagata,” explained infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch. “Was it hiding out somewhere or was it just circulating in lower levels? Was it going to somehow emerge later on? Those are questions that were asked at that time. But, it didn’t seem to come back.”

Although it has disappeared, Bogoch emphasized that this does not mean the strain is eradicated, as eliminating any virus is extremely challenging.

Read more about why B/Yamagata may have disappeared and when the updated vaccine will make its way to Canada.

The best age for an Olympian?

A new study has revealed a surprising trend among Olympic track and field athletes: the peak age for top performance is consistently around 27, regardless of gender.

After analyzing decades of Olympic data, researchers at the University of Waterloo found that most athletes achieved their best results at this age before a gradual decline.

The study, published in the July 2024 issue of the Royal Statistical Society’s Significance Journal, said after years of rigorous training, track and field athletes may peak around the age of 27, only to see their performance levels gradually decline afterward.

After the age of 27, there is only a 44 per cent probability that an athlete’s peak is still ahead of them, and this number drops every subsequent year, the study found.

While predicting peak performance for running events was relatively straightforward, David Awosoga, the study’s lead author and a data science student at the University of Waterloo, noted that other Olympic categories were more complex and less predictable.

“We speculate that for throws in particular, the peak age of a thrower is hardest to predict because they had the longest careers on average out of any event discipline. And so there’s a lot more variability there,” he said.

Read more about why the researchers believe 27 may be the magic age for track-and-field athletes.

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Unapproved versions of Ozempic circulating in Canada

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Unapproved, compounded versions of a popular diabetes and weight-loss drug are being sold in Canada,  the Ozempic maker said, amid a warning about dosing errors that have resulted in some people being hospitalized in the United States.

Novo Nordisk told Global News on July 29 that it has filed a complaint with Health Canada regarding the promotion and sale of compounded semaglutide – which is a key ingredient in both Ozempic and Wegovy – in Canada.

“We are aware that several compounding pharmacies, weight loss clinics, and medical spas are purporting to sell or offer unapproved compounded semaglutide products both in Canada and the U.S.,” a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk Canada said in an emailed statement.

“Patients should be aware that Novo Nordisk is the only company in Canada with Health Canada-approved products containing semaglutide and the only company in the U.S. with FDA-approved products containing semaglutide, identified under the trade names Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy.”

Compounding is when pharmacies or other practitioners have the substances needed to mix and prepare specialty medications, and do so. It was frequently used in Canada by pharmacies during the COVID-19 pandemic when manufactured supplies of children’s pain medications were in short supply, but the pharmaceutical components to mix those medications were still available in some pharmacies.

It is only meant to be done in cases where there is a limited supply of medication “and should not be done solely for economic reasons for the healthcare professionals,” according to Health Canada guidelines on compounding.