Vaccine hesitancy among adults during Quebec’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign
Published in Frontiers in Public Health, the CARTaGENE research team, based at the Research Center at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine and part of the CITF-funded CanPATH study, found that vaccination hesitancy among adults in Quebec was correlated with education levels, age and other socio-demographic determinants.
Dried blood spots can be a reliable test to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies
In a study now published in Microbiology Spectrum, a team of Vancouver investigators, led by Dr. Agatha Jassem of the British Columbia Center for Disease Control (BCCDC) and partially funded by the CITF, demonstrated that dried blood spot (DBS) testing should be considered reliable in detecting SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity acquired from both natural infection and vaccination.
Impact of Omicron wave apparent in Canadian Blood Services’ January data
Most Canadian blood donors exhibited some form of immunity against SARS-CoV-2 in January 2022, primarily due to vaccination. Nonetheless, infection-acquired seroprevalence increased sharply between December 2021 and the end of January 2022, nearly tripling from 6.4% to 16.3%. Almost a quarter of donors aged 17-24 were seropositive for infection-acquired antibodies (22.2%). Key findings: Nearly all blood donors (98.9%) tested positive for antibodies targeting the [...]
What is the optimal interval between mRNA vaccine doses?
This pre-print study, not yet peer-reviewed, led by CITF-funded researcher Dr. Brian Grunau from the University of British Columbia, aimed to identify the optimal interval between mRNA vaccine doses to generate the maximum immune response.
Not all mRNA vaccines generate the same level of Delta-blocking antibodies
New findings emerged from the CITF-funded COVID-19 Occupational Risks, Seroprevalence and Immunity among Paramedics (CORSIP) project led by Dr. Brian Grunau based at the University of British Columbia.
COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in the population on maintenance dialysis
A CITF-funded study - led by Drs. Matthew Oliver from the University of Toronto and Peter Blake from Western University – looked at the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines among 13,759 individuals receiving maintenance dialysis.
Blood data from early 2022 reflect Omicron’s impact prior to the holidays
In the first of a series of biweekly reports, the Canadian Blood Services revealed Omicron’s traction in December 2021. While all blood donors tested positive for the spike (S) protein, primarily due to immunization, infection-acquired seropositivity (as evidenced by anti-N IgG antibodies) climbed from 7.5% to 10.1 % from December 25, 2021 to January 15, 2022. This latter rate is roughly double the [...]
Using multiple assays and models to help decipher true Canadian seropositivity
Using various serological assays in parallel on the same set of samples can produce inconsistent results. A solution is to use composite reference standards and latent class analysis to help decipher true seropositivity.
Safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy: A Canadian National Vaccine Safety (CANVAS) Network study
A pre-print, not yet peer-reviewed, from the CANVAS Network, by Drs. Julie Bettinger and Manish Sadarangani from the University of British Columbia and their colleagues explored the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy among 15-49-year-olds and compared them to an unvaccinated control group, including unvaccinated pregnant people.