First presumptive human case of avian flu acquired in Canada detected in teen

November 09, 2024 

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry speaks in Victoria on Thursday, March 10, 2022.

 British Columbia's Ministry of Health says the first suspected human case of bird flu contracted in Canada has been detected in B.C.

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

British Columbia’s Ministry of Health says the first suspected human case of bird flu contracted in Canada has been detected in B.C.

A statement from the office of the provincial health officer says a teenager in the region covered by Fraser Health tested positive for bird flu, and the teen is currently getting treatment at BC Children’s Hospital.

The statement says the positive test was done by the BC Centre for Disease Control, and samples are on their way to Winnipeg’s national microbiology lab for confirmatory testing

It says public health officials are also looking into the case to find the source of exposure and identify any contacts.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says it is “a rare event” and only a handful of cases of bird flu, caused by the H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus, have been detected in humans in the U.S. and abroad.

The statement says the source of the teen’s exposure to the virus is very likely to be from an animal or bird, while public health officials and the province’s chief veterinarian investigate.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

Province reports first presumptive positive human case of H5 avian influenza in BC and Canada

BC sees first case of bird flu

Casey Richardson - Nov 9, 2024 / 4:09 pm | Story: 516614

Photo: The Canadian Press

BC announced on Saturday afternoon that an individual in British Columbia had tested presumptive positive for avian influenza, also known as bird flu.

This was the first detection of avian influenza due to the H5 virus in a person in B.C.

The province said this is also the first detection of a presumed human case of H5 avian influenza acquired in Canada.

"The positive test for H5 was performed at the BC Centre for Disease Control's Public-Health Laboratory. Samples are being sent to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg for confirmatory testing," the province added.

Currently, the individual, who is a teenager from the Fraser Health region, is receiving care at BC Children's Hospital.

The province said a public health investigation has begun to determine the source of exposure and identify any contacts.

"Our thoughts are with this young person and their family during this difficult time," said Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.'s provincial health officer in the news release.

"This is a rare event, and while it is the first detected case of H5 in a person in B.C. or in Canada, there have been a small number of human cases in the U.S. and elsewhere, which is why we are conducting a thorough investigation to fully understand the source of exposure here in B.C."

Anyone who may have been exposed will be contacted by public health to assess for symptoms and provide guidance on testing and prevention measures.

There have been no further cases identified or reported at this time, according to the province.

B.C.'s chief veterinarian and public health teams are also investigating since the source of exposure is believed to be very likely an animal or bird.

The investigation involves public health teams from Fraser Health, BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), the BCCDC Public Health Laboratory, BC Children's Hospital, the Office of the Provincial Health Officer, the Office of the Chief Veterinarian, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and others.

"Health, animal and environmental partners across B.C. have also been working together and with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and other national and U.S. partners to respond to the increased detections of H5N1 avian influenza in poultry farms and wild birds in the province since early October," the province said.

To protect yourself against avian influenza, the following prevention measures are recommended by the province:

• Stay up to date on all immunizations, especially the seasonal flu vaccine.
• Do not touch sick or dead animals or their droppings and do not bring sick wild animals into your home.
• Keep your pets away from sick or dead animals and their feces (poo).
• Report dead or sick birds or animals.
• For poultry or livestock, contact the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) Animal Health office: https://inspection.canada.ca/en/about-cfia/contact-cfia-office-telephone#bc-animal(https://https://inspection.canada.ca/en/about-cfia/contact-cfia-office-telephone#bc-animal)
• For pets, contact your veterinarian or call the BC Animal Health Centre at 1 800 661-9903
• For wild birds, contact the BC Wild Bird Mortality Line: 1 866 431-2473
• For wild mammals, contact the BC Wildlife Health Program: 1 250 751-7246

For those who may have been exposed to sick or dead birds or animals or work on a farm where avian influenza has been detected, they are asked to watch for symptoms of influenza-like illness.

Symptoms within 10 days after exposure to sick or dead animals should be reported to a health-care provider, notifying them that you have been in contact with sick animals and are concerned about avian influenza.

"This will help them give you appropriate advice on testing and treatment. Stay home and away from others while you have symptoms."

H5N1 has been detected in wild birds, on poultry farms and among small wild mammals, including skunks and foxes within BC.

The province said most cases have been reported during migration season when wild birds carrying the virus are in high numbers.

"Since the beginning of October 2024, at least 22 infected poultry premises have been identified in B.C., along with numerous wild birds testing positive"

However, there have been no cases reported in dairy cattle and no evidence of avian influenza in samples of milk in BC or Canada.

"Influenza viruses are adaptable and can change when strains from humans or different animal species mix and exchange genetic information. Avian influenza could become more serious if the virus develops the ability to transmit from person to person, with potential for human-to-human transmission" the province said.

More information can be found online here.

Scientists fired from Winnipeg lab over security fears rightly under probe: minister

© Provided by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — It's "extremely appropriate" that two scientists who lost their jobs due to dealings with China remain under investigation, Health Minister Mark Holland said Wednesday.

The National Microbiology Laboratory researchers were fired in early 2021 after their security clearances were revoked over questions about their loyalty and the potential for coercion by China.

Records tabled in Parliament late last month say the scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, played down their collaborations with Chinese government agencies.

The RCMP said Wednesday a national security investigation into the matter, which begain in May 2019, remains underway.

The Mounties started the probe following a referral from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The Globe and Mail newspaper reported Wednesday the two scientists have been using pseudonyms as they build a new life in China.

Holland said he was "deeply disturbed" by the scientists' behaviour.

"They're under an investigation, and rightfully so," he said.

"That investigation is ongoing. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the nature of that investigation. But I would say that it's extremely appropriate that the investigations are occurring."

The documents presented to Parliament show the Canadian Security Intelligence Service concluded that Qiu repeatedly lied about the extent of her work with institutions of the Chinese government.

Related video: Documents on fired Winnipeg scientists released (Global News)

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The records also say she refused to admit involvement in various Chinese programs even when evidence was presented to her.

CSIS found that Qiu provided at least two employees of Chinese government institutions access to the microbiology laboratory, and consistently said she had very limited knowledge of these institutions' mandates, "despite an abundance of evidence that she was actually working with or for them."

Upon release of the records, the Public Health Agency said it had taken steps to bolster research security in response to the episode.

The microbiology laboratory has a "renewed, proactive security posture" that has reinforced the physical security of the building, the health agency said.

"Screening measures are strictly enforced for all staff and external visitors, including the requirement for visitors to be accompanied at all times and without exception."

The Public Health Agency needs to provide a fuller explanation of exactly what it has done, said Wesley Wark, a senior fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Wark, a national security expert who has closely followed the issue, said the agency must be able to demonstrate concretely how it has changed the lab's practices with regard to security training, data protection and information technology.

"From my perspective, there's two things that we need to know," Wark said.

"One is the details of the changes. The other is, was there a review conducted in order to make those changes, to make sure that they were going to be adequate?"

A spokesman for the Public Health Agency did not have immediate answers Wednesday to questions about the security changes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2024.

SEE

2 Scientists in Canada Passed On Secrets to China, Investigations Find

New book debunks Winnipeg-lab conspiracy theory but questions collaboration with Chinese military scientist

Feds drop court fight to block documents on firing of National Microbiology Lab scientists

Fired Winnipeg lab scientist listed as co-inventor on two Chinese government patents

Canadian scientist sent deadly viruses to Wuhan lab months before RCMP asked to investigate'

Websites spin unproven link between Canada, China about coronavirus outbreak

Opposition right to be wary of Liberals withholding details about fired Canadian scientists with Wuhan links: expert

Liberal MP questions Justice Department's legal advice on fired scientists

2013 AN EARLIER CASE OF A HONEY POT BUST

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSING TERRORIST SCIENTISTS IN THE NEWS

In April of this year the RCMP announced that they had uncovered a bio-terrorist threat involving two Canadian scientists working for the innocuous sounding: Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). 

The two CFIA scientists were busted for attempting to sell Brucellis virus to China. In fact one of the scientists, herself Chinese, had gotten away to China.1 They were under investigation for two years when it became known that they were trying to commercialize the bacteria they had developed with CFIA.

2 Scientists in Canada Passed On Secrets to China, Investigations Find

After a prolonged Parliamentary debate, details about two microbiology researchers who were found to have shared secrets with China have been released.

The couple were escorted from their labs at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2019 and later stripped of their security clearances. They were fired in January 2021.

Credit...John Woods/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press


By Ian Austen
Reporting from Ottawa
Feb. 29, 2024,

Two scientists who worked at Canada’s top microbiology lab passed on secret scientific information to China, and one of them was a “realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security,” documents from the national intelligence agency and a security investigation show.

The hundreds of pages of reports about the two researchers, Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, who were married and born in China, were released to the House of Commons late Wednesday after a national security review by a special parliamentary committee and a panel of three retired senior judges.

Canadian officials, who have warned that the country’s academic and research institutions are a target of Chinese intelligence campaigns, have tightened rules around collaborating with foreign universities. Canadian universities can now be disqualified from federal funding if they enter into partnerships with any of 100 institutions in China, Russia and Iran.

The release of the documents was the subject of a prolonged debate in Parliament that began before the last federal election, in September 2021. Opposition parties asked to see the records at least four times and found the Liberal government to be in contempt of Parliament in 2021. The government filed a lawsuit in an attempt to keep the records hidden, but dropped it when the vote was called.

The release comes as the country is holding a special inquiry led by a judge to look into allegations that China and other foreign nations have interfered in Canadian elections and political parties. Some of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political opponents have charged that his government has failed to respond adequately to Chinese meddling in Canadian affairs.

But Mark Holland, the federal health minister in Canada, told reporters late Wednesday that at “no time did national secrets or information that threatened the security of Canada leave the lab.”

The couple were escorted out of their labs at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, during the summer of 2019 and later stripped of their security clearances. They were fired in January 2021.

More on China China’s Hacker Network: Leaked documents recently posted online show how the Chinese government is working with private hackers to obtain sensitive information from foreign governments and companies.

Fed-Up Investors: It’s a perilous time for investors in China. As their losses pile up, they are losing confidence not only in the stock market but in the government’s ability to turn the economy around.

Seeking a Friendlier Image: Faced with declining foreign investment at home, China has sought to soften its image abroad. Liu Jianchao, a Communist Party official, has played an unusually prominent role in the shift in tone.

‘Shawshank’ on Stage: A stage adaptation of the film “The Shawshank Redemption” in Beijing, cast with Western actors speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese, has raised questions about translation, both linguistic and cultural.

The same year, the government released heavily redacted records about their dismissal, setting off a battle with opposition parties that were demanding more detail about the security breach.

The large cache of newly released documents, which have significantly fewer redactions, offer more details about the scientists’ unauthorized cooperation and information exchanges with Chinese institutions. The documents also revealed that Dr. Qui had not disclosed formal agreements with Chinese agencies in which a Chinese institution agreed to pay substantial amounts of research money. It also agreed to pay her an annual salary of 210,000 Canadian dollars (about $155,000).

The couple could not be located, and they did not appear to have any obvious local representatives. Some Canadian news outlets have reported, based on undisclosed sources, that they moved to China after being dismissed. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened a criminal investigation in 2021, but its status is unclear and no charges have been laid.

The documents released on Wednesday do not include any general response from the couple. But they show that during questioning by investigators, Dr. Qui repeatedly said that she was not aware that she had broken any security rules, blamed the health agency for not fully explaining procedures and frequently tried to mislead investigators until confronted by contradictory evidence.

In a letter to Dr. Qui, the public health agency said that she “did not express remorse or regret. You failed to accept responsibility for your actions and deflected blame onto P.H.A.C.” It added that she did not show “any signs of corrective behavior, rehabilitation or desire for resolution of the situation.”

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service also found that Dr. Qiu repeatedly misrepresented her ties to researchers and organizations in China, relationships it characterized as “close and clandestine.”

In one secret report, the intelligence agency said that when she was asked about her exchanges with scientists and organizations in China, she “continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies.”

An internal investigation report for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which includes the lab, shows that the couple fell under suspicion in 2018, when Dr. Qiu was named an inventor on a patent granted in China that appeared to use research developed by the agency for an Ebola vaccine.

That revelation, in turn, suggested that the couple had engaged in several violations of security rules at the laboratory, portions of which are designed for work on the world’s most lethal microbes, including ones that could be used for biological warfare.

Those breaches included attempts by graduate students of Dr. Qiu at the University of Manitoba, all of whom were Chinese nationals, to remove material from the lab and being allowed to wander through the facility unescorted.

In one episode, X-rays revealed that a parcel delivered to the lab for Dr. Cheng — and labeled “kitchen utensils” — contained vials of mouse proteins. The discovery underscored that Dr. Cheng had broken protocols, according to the documents.

An investigation by the intelligence agency found that Dr. Qiu had a formal agreement with Heibei Medical University to work on a “talent program,” something it described as a project “to boost China’s national technological capabilities.”

A report documenting the investigation added that it “may pose a serious threat to research institutions, including government research facilities, by incentivizing economic espionage.” That agreement promised about 1.2 million Canadian dollars (roughly $884,000) in research funding. The agency said the couple did not disclose, as required, that they maintained a bank account in China.

Dr. Qiu, the intelligence service said, also had a résumé she used only in China that showed she was a visiting professor at three Chinese health research institutes and a visiting researcher at a fourth one.

Exactly what information Dr. Qiu may have provided to China and how China may have used it is not clear either from the internal investigation or the intelligence agency reports.

The intelligence service said that many of the institutions she worked with researched “potentially lethal military applications.” When asked as part of an internal investigation about the potential military uses of her work, Dr. Qiu said that the idea had not occurred to her, the documents show.

The internal investigation found that a trip Dr. Qiu made to Beijing in 2018 was paid for by a Chinese biotechnology company.

Mr. Holland said that the lab’s management had demonstrated an “inadequate understanding of the threat of foreign interference.”

He added, “I believe that an earnest effort was made to adhere to those policies, but not with the rigor that was required.”

In a statement, Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, said that the Chinese government and its agencies, “including the People’s Liberation Army, were allowed to infiltrate Canada’s top-level lab.” The statement added, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China, “They were able to transfer sensitive intellectual property and dangerous pathogens to the P.R.C.”

Vjosa Isai contributed reporting from Toronto.

Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times based in Ottawa. He covers politics, culture and the people of Canada and has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at austen@nytimes.com. More about Ian Austen

Health Canada ignored warning signs before Ottawa spent billions on BTNX rapid tests

By Patti Sonntag Global News
Posted January 11, 2024 

Health Canada ignored critical warnings about a rapid-test supplier before approving its COVID-19 kits for distribution nationwide, Global News has found.

A year-long Global News investigation into federal procurement revealed that BTNX, a Toronto-area rapid-test supplier that buys the devices from China, deleted dozens of specimens, or samples, from a study it submitted to Health Canada in October 2020. Deleting the specimens increased the estimate of the rapid test’s ability to detect the virus.

In October 2020, BTNX submitted an application to Health Canada as it sought approval to sell its rapid test for COVID-19. One of the studies in the package was a study that suggested the test would detect 94.55 per cent of infections, among people who had symptoms for less than 14 days.

However, two months earlier, BTNX told authorities in Peru the same test detected 80.2 per cent of infections overall, according to records that government published online.

The lower detection rate of 80.2 per cent of infections is the estimate that the kit’s Chinese manufacturer, Assure Tech, gave to every business selling the test worldwide. It was based on a study of the test’s ability to detect the virus carried out at two health-care facilities near the company’s Hangzhou headquarters.

Though an assistant deputy minister at Health Canada had already flagged possible issues with another BTNX application, federal employees reviewing BTNX’s file did not challenge the company about this improvement or ask for an explanation, according to correspondence Global News obtained via freedom of information request.

BTNX admitted that it had deleted specimens. The company “worked with the data provided to us,” BTNX wrote to Global News in December 2023, making changes to “focus the data on the intended use of the product.”

In the wake of Global News’ reporting, BTNX added in a letter that the changes to the study were “based on the US FDA EUA template” and, in a press release, in “accordance with industry standards.”

The leap in the product’s accuracy was one of at least three red flags that Health Canada appears to have either missed or ignored as BTNX applied for a licence to sell the test kit in the fall of 2020. This included a warning from a senior Health Canada official about the veracity of the company’s public statements; data missing from a second study in BTNX’s application; and what researchers called elevated test results.

BTNX and Health Canada have stated that BTNX’s device works as promised, and regulators had all the information they required. Health Canada told Global News last month it will not re-examine BTNX’s licence to sell this test.

Dr. Stephen Ellis, member of Parliament for Cumberland-Colchester and the Conservative shadow minister for health, told Global News that his party will “hold the Liberals to account” and follow up on this “very serious concern regarding rapid test approvals.”

When Global News asked Mark Johnson, a Health Canada spokesman, what guidance applies to suppliers editing studies, he quoted the Food and Drugs Act.

“No person shall knowingly make a false or misleading statement,” he wrote.

Regardless, the federal government awarded BTNX a series of contracts in 2021 and 2022 that became Canada’s largest pandemic deal for medical supplies.

A wartime effort

When borders closed in the spring of 2020, with COVID-19 infections spreading, no vaccines, and entire nations in lockdown, workers at Health Canada and other federal offices faced a daunting task in finding the medical supplies Canada needed.

Government employees in Ottawa found themselves caught up in a global competition for rapid tests so fierce that a Health Canada official called it the “Hunger Games.”

Global News began looking into procurement while rapid test purchases were still underway. Federal ministries permitted some of the workers who evaluated rapid tests or procured them to participate in a rare group interview on the condition that Global News would not name employees or ask about contractors.

The interview took place in November 2022. Certain disparities in statements by BTNX executives a few weeks later led Global News to further investigate how and why BTNX received its contracts.

Six officials joined the interview, almost all of them at director level and above, in the interest of sharing their experiences during the public health emergency.

“The desperation can’t be captured in words,” recalled a senior official from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Her voice broke as she shared the group’s fears that “we might not be able to get our hands on […] enough supply.”

All the world’s manufacturing plants were only able to meet a fraction of global needs. And Canadian officials could not match the purchasing power of their U.S. or European counterparts or the scale of their orders.

With few options, Canada turned inward. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Canadian manufacturers to produce medical supplies, from face shields to ventilators.

Authorities preparing to launch mass screening pinned their hopes on a test manufactured by Spartan Bioscience, a company based in Ottawa. This DNA-based “lab-in-a-box” solution attempted to solve the problem of accuracy.

Health officials around the world had concerns about the reliability of the obvious alternative to lab tests, which were cheaply made rapid tests. In many markets these had never been regulated — and the World Health Organization would issue two warnings about them within the next six weeks.

Health Canada hired new employees, set up an emergency authorization process for health care equipment, and cut wait times on licences to sell medical supplies.

Over at Public Services and Procurement Canada, the invocation of the National Security Exemption empowered employees to skip most processes.

According to a CBC report published on April 12, 2020, exploring why Health Canada was lagging behind U.S. and European regulators, a BTNX executive said in an interview that the company was disappointed with the amount of time Health Canada was taking to approve its antibody test.

“We’ve seen the speed in which other, other health agencies around the world have been able to take these decisions,” BTNX’s CFO Mitch Pittaway said. “We think that Canada will hopefully be in a position to take a well-informed decision quite quickly.”

Pittaway was pitching an “antibody” test that detected the body’s reaction to the presence of COVID-19. Antigen tests, released soon afterward, detect the virus itself.

He noted that the company was selling the tests in the U.S. through an emergency program.

The next day, Pierre Sabourin, who was then an assistant deputy minister at Health Canada, flagged to Stephen Lucas, deputy minister, that he thought BTNX was misleading the public. Global News obtained correspondence between federal workers from a government website and freedom-of-information requests.

“Some manufacturers/importers claim falsely” that U.S. health authorities authorized their antibody tests for sale, Sabourin wrote. “For example, BTNX.”

At the time, the U.S. regulator was experimenting with pre-authorization sales, allowing rapid test suppliers to sell their products while they waited for officials to process their applications. BTNX was among that group.

BTNX’s application to Health Canada for authorization to sell the antibody test was “poor quality,” Sabourin added. The supplier had not submitted clinical data that backed up its claims, he wrote.

In response to Global News’ recent questions, BTNX wrote that it has always been transparent with regulators and the public.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses Canadians from Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on April 29, 2020, the same day that he spoke about rapid test suppliers in the House of Commons. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick.

On April 29, 2020, in a House of Commons debate, Prime Minister Trudeau called BTNX an “innovative Canadian company that has moved forward with a world-class product.”

Health Canada did not respond to Global News’ questions about whether the ministry informed the Prime Minister’s Office about Sabourin’s concerns.

In a statement issued after this article was published on Jan. 11, 2024, the Prime Minister’s Office wrote that BTNX’s antigen “rapid tests work well and have been successfully used by millions of Canadians” to fight COVID-19. A spokeswoman described Health Canada’s decision-making as “independent.”

A priority application

Six months later, Spartan’s device had not proven reliable enough, according to Health Canada’s evaluation. And any obstacles to BTNX’s applications had seemingly vanished.

David Boudreau, director general of Health Canada, emailed Sabourin and Manon Bombardier, assistant deputy minister, on Oct. 14, 2020, to announce that, after discussions, BTNX had applied for authorization to sell an antigen test for COVID-19.

Given the emphasis on finding antigen tests, he wrote, Health Canada would review the file “in priority, as soon as possible.”

It is unclear why Health Canada prioritized BTNX’s application.

Assure Tech, BTNX’s supplier in China, had already applied separately to Health Canada for authorization to sell exactly the same product.

Sabourin did not reply to Boudreau in writing.

(Sabourin declined Global News’ request for comment. He retired in December 2021.)

Federal employees set to work.

In Winnipeg, workers at the National Microbiology Lab evaluated sample tests BTNX provided.

In Ottawa, an employee with a PhD in biochemistry supervised the examination of BTNX’s and Assure Tech’s nearly identical application packages, which workers paired together, according to federal records.

One of the evaluations in BTNX’s package, but not in Assure Tech’s, was the edited version of the study of the test’s ability to detect COVID-19.

It was not immediately apparent that the two documents described the same study. Global News’ analysis showed that in addition to omitting data, BTNX had renumbered the locations at which the evaluation took place and the specimens’ identifying numbers.

According to Health Canada, its employees did not notice that 132 out of the study’s original 348 specimens were missing and found no “reason to question [the studies’] scientific integrity.”

A quick scan of Canadian distributors’ websites would have shown that another business was marketing the same test to customers overseas with the overall 80.2 per cent sensitivity estimate. Yet in BTNX’s application to Health Canada, this figure jumped to nearly 95 per cent.

“There was no switching of sites,” the company’s spokesman wrote. BTNX provided a “reliable testing tool for Canadians.”

One of the changes involved removing “retrospective positives.” This refers to specimens that have been frozen.

BTNX said Canadian and U.S. health regulators recommended using fresh samples.

In fact, Health Canada advised the company that it could use frozen specimens in its correspondence with BTNX. The U.S. FDA said the same.

Global News’ examination of the data also revealed that BTNX did not delete all of the frozen specimens, only those that tested positive for COVID-19. Those deletions improved the outcome for the nasal test by nearly 10 percentage points.

Examining clinical studies posted to Health Canada’s website, Global News found that other rapid test suppliers used retrospective samples and described the results from unusable specimens.

In response to questions about whether editing data was common among Canadian rapid test companies, Cenk Ozkan, vice president of Artron Laboratories, based in Burnaby, B.C., told Global News that deleting data would risk “loss of credibility and legal actions.”

Health Canada, for its part, has defended its decision to approve BTNX’s application. The approval relied on the full package, a spokesman wrote in December, including a second study of the test’s sensitivity that was carried out in the United States and managed by Assure Tech, BTNX’s supplier.

Global News discovered BTNX’s version of this second study was different from Assure Tech’s as well.

View image in full screen

This table presents all known versions of studies in Assure Tech’s and BTNX’s Health Canada applications. Global News

The version of this second study Assure Tech submitted to Health Canada cited 230 specimens. BTNX’s version cited just 82, suggesting that an unknown person omitted the majority of the specimens.

Assure Tech did not respond to Global News’ requests for comment. BTNX told Global News that Assure Tech provided only 82 specimens to BTNX.

“AssureTech did not advise BTNX that it had additional specimens from another site or that it was submitting a broader study to Health Canada,” the company’s spokesman wrote on Jan. 5. Health Canada’s approval of the test for consumers relied on a third evaluation in the package, he stated.

The deletions have raised questions among Canadian researchers about why the regulator approved BTNX’s application.

Trudo Lemmens, a professor of health law and policy at the University of Toronto, said, “The fact that Health Canada didn’t see it or ignored it” suggests “regulatory failure.”

Lemmens called on the federal government to launch an investigation that also allows for “scrutiny by independent researchers outside of government, outside of industry, to be able to see whether the data supports the claims.”

New questions about the application

In the November 2022 interview, a Health Canada official recalled federal workers’ sense of unity as he looked back on those terrible days.
“We were all rolling up our sleeves,” he said, “trying [to protect] the health and safety of Canadians.”

He and his colleagues seemed confident that they had weeded out less reliable suppliers.

“We came to realize which companies were able to have quality applications” with “data that would support the claims,” he explained to Global News.

Since Global News’ report was published, Health Canada has argued that the National Microbiology Laboratory’s evaluation of BTNX’s kit supported BTNX’s stated sensitivity.

View image in full screen

A passer-by walked past a COVID-19 testing clinic in Montreal, Friday, Oct. 16, 2020. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Global News obtained the NML’s results and the lab report, which called the device a “less-sensitive” test. The technicians attributed its lower outcomes to storage issues.

Unknown to Health Canada, researchers for the German, Spanish and British governments were separately reaching the same conclusion in the fall of 2020 and winter of 2021. (To learn more, you can read our Dec. 21 story online.)

Researchers Global News asked to review the data said the contrast between the governments’ results and the outcomes BTNX reported to Health Canada were eye-catching.

Dr. Larissa Matukas, head of the microbiology division at Unity Health Toronto, St. Michael’s Hospital, explained, “You’re not going to score 100 per cent […] all the time for every single patient.”

The ministry approved BTNX’s and Assure Tech’s applications on Feb. 19, 2021.

Over the next year and a half, the federal government bought 404 million test kits from BTNX for an estimated $2 billion. Global News’ reporting indicates that this was the biggest order any government placed with any supplier of Assure Tech’s device worldwide.

When will the COVID-19 pandemic end? Past diseases, and how they played out, offer some clues

JANUARY 2, 2022

Everyone is hoping we finally reach one destination in the new year: the end of the pandemic.

But with two-year lockdown cycles, exponential case counts, a testing crunch, and an omicron curveball just a few to come by, it can sometimes seem like that point keeps rolling back and forth on the horizon.
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Experts agree that the coming year is difficult to predict, but they can take some of their hopes and fears and lessons from past pandemics.

It is unlikely, they say, that the virus will disappear. But the sharp increase in new cases could mean that they drop quickly before expected to settle into some kind of low-grade, continuous, less heavy presence.

Cases doubled every few days at the end of 2021, with Omicron quickly overtaking Delta to become the dominant version in Canada.

“But sometimes when that happens we also see a really rapid decline,” said Winnipeg-based epidemiologist Cynthia Carr, adding that whether that happens will define the first few months of 2022.

“It burns through a large section of the population.”

An infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Dr. Sira Help said, there are still too many unknowns.

The data is “coming out fast and furiously from all different angles, from different countries, I think there’s good and bad,” she said, speaking by phone from New York City, the epicenter of Omicron. one of. Madad is also senior director of the System-Wide Special Pathogens Program at NYC Health & Hospitals.

“The good news we’re seeing right now is that the Omicron version seems to be milder than other types of anxiety in terms of causing serious illness,” she said.

“But because it’s so highly transmissible, you’ll see a lot of people get infected with this virus.”

There have already been some concerning reports of hospitalizations in the US, mostly involving children who have not been vaccinated.

In Ontario, where there are so many new cases that lab polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are now limited to people at high risk, Hospitalizations are also increasing,

a recent report Public Health Ontario found that the risk of hospitalization and death from Omicron was approximately 54 percent lower than from Delta, adjusting for vaccination status and region. However, the number of hospitalizations and the impact on the health care system are still “likely to be significant” because it is so contagious.

the variant appears reached its peak in South Africa, where it was first detected, said Madd, who was featured in Netflix’s early 2020 documentary series, “Pandemic.”

“The best way to put it is crash and burn,” she said. But there are “various factors” to consider; South Africa for example “could reach a threshold in terms of testing capacity,” and still “asymptomatic cases are not being taken up.”

Carr suspects that COVID will go away, like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people in about 30 countries, including Canada, in the mid-2000s.

Instead, Carr said that COVID can be seasonal, like a flu, “which can still have a very severe impact on some people, vulnerable people in the population,” or called endemic (a stable , but not a heavy presence in some areas).

“If we continue to see again that people are not getting shortness of breath or very medically severe cases, it could be good news that we are turning to an endemic situation where perhaps this strain is no longer there. Moving towards having more strains of coronavirus,” said Carr.

He said these strains cause “one in four” common colds. Although it’s too early to say with certainty, “It’s my hope, that it might actually steer us in this direction, given how quickly it’s moving.”

No one could have predicted Omicron’s “efficacy and just the rate of transmission,” said Tim Sly, a professor emeritus in the School of Occupational and Public Health at the university, formerly known as Ryerson.

“Never underestimate Mother Nature, she has all kinds of tricks up her sleeve.”

Sly agrees that COVID probably won’t “disappear” as SARS did, as eventually “everybody is going to be exposed”. Instead he thinks it will be “in line with the model we’ve seen with influenza viruses for years.”

The flu of 1918–19, which spread around the world after World War I, eventually ended with infected people dying or gaining some immunity. But new strains of that virus have emerged over time, including the swine flu pandemic in 2009, Sly said.

“So these things enter the population and if they stay there, they pop up a few years later as part of the normal seasonal influenza virus,” he said.

“We’ll probably be seeing an annual flu shot that also includes a coronavirus antigen, just to keep us on top every year.”

Where she sits, New York City’s help hears “much fear, a lot of anxiety,” and “flashbacks to March 2020.” But, she said, it’s important to remember that we now have a lot of tools to fight the virus, including vaccines, masks and even new promising treatments.

A few days before Christmas, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer approved a new antiviral pill, called Paxlovid, for emergency use. It is not yet authorized in Canada.

“It’s the kind of sunshine we all needed in the midst of a viral blizzard,” Madd said, and “will definitely be a game changer.” Before people can receive treatment, he said, they need to be diagnosed.

Unfortunately, “the boom and demand for testing is quite astronomical,” in both the US and Canada, and many people may not have access to testing.

Help hopes the virus will transition “in a more seasonal pattern,” with fewer deaths and dire consequences. But that’s “really it’s just a hope and a wish. I’m not going to say it’s going to happen in 2022 just now.”

And what about the likely future, even worse, variants? Eric Arts, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Western University, said that “most of the time” when a virus mutates, it does so to find a way to transmit more easily between people than it seems. That’s what Omicron has done.

Going forward, “we hope that’s what’s going to happen, but again we don’t know. You can get a mutation that helps transmission and that can have really serious consequences in disease, but it There’s a mutation that comes with the ride.”

The best way to prevent this scenario, he said, is to ensure that everyone has access to vaccines.

“We have focused a lot on our situation in Canada and the US, country by country, let us get our vaccines, let us protect ourselves. This world is too small for him,” he said.

“If we really want a good 2022, and we want to see the end of it, we need to do more to vaccinate the world. It’s that simple.

TIRED OLD TORIES GOTCHA POLITICS

Conservatives reject Liberals' compromise deal on Winnipeg lab documents over firing of scientists

Ryan Tumilty 

OTTAWA — The Conservatives are rejecting a proposed deal over access to documents related to the firing of two scientists from Canada’s National Microbiology lab, arguing the Liberals’ efforts are too little too late.

© Provided by National Post 

The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the lab in July 2019, and later fired.

Liberal House Leader Mark Holland offered the compromise last week. It called for striking an all-party committee to review the confidential documents, with a panel of judges enlisted to settle any disputes over whether the documents should be made public or kept secret.

The documents surround the mysterious firing of two scientists from the national lab two years ago. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the Winnipeg lab in July 2019. The government has consistently refused to reveal why they were dismissed.

Liberals offer deal to allow select MPs to see documents on fired Winnipeg lab scientists

Fired Winnipeg lab scientist listed as co-inventor on two Chinese government patents

Conservative House Leader Gérard Deltell said the new deal is insufficient and the Liberals should respect four separate votes from the last Parliament that called for the documents to be released.

“Regrettably, your government’s efforts to find a suitable arrangement are many months too late,” he said in a letter to Holland. “The will of Parliament is clear, September’s election has not changed its composition to the point where you might hope for a different outcome in a fifth vote.”

The documents were first demanded by the House of Commons committee on Canada-China relations, but the government essentially ignored the request. A motion was then passed in the House calling for them to be presented but Iain Stewart, then president of the Public Health Health Agency of Canada, repeatedly argued that he was prevented by law from releasing material that could violate privacy or national security laws.

The battle culminated in June with Stewart being hauled before the bar of the Commons to be reprimanded by the Speaker. A few days later, the government asked a Federal Court to intervene to stop the release of the documents, arguing they must be kept secret to protect national security. That case was then dropped when the Liberals called an election for September.

Deltell charged the Liberals have consistently avoided parliamentary accountability.

“We have little faith that your letter represents an actual change in any way, shape or form to the government approach given your pattern of behaviour concerning parliamentary accountability over the past few years.”

Holland said he was deeply disappointed to see the Conservatives respond as they did, especially because his proposal was modelled on one adopted by the Harper government in 2010 to allow opposition MPs to read unredacted documents detailing the treatment of detainees turned over to Afghan authorities by the Canadian military.

“I was hopeful their posture would be a reasonable one, and confused because the mechanism that we suggested was created by them. It was a mechanism that Stephen Harper called reasonable.”

Deltell in his letter contends the two situations are not the same, because the Liberals initial motion on Afghanistan had no safeguards for protecting sensitive information and the demand was coming as NATO troops remained on the ground in Afghanistan.

Under Holland’s rejected proposal each party and one alternate would sit on a panel to review the documents and decide what information should be made public. The MPs would be selected by their parties, but they would have to pass a security clearance and read the documents in a secure room.

Any disagreements about what should be made public would be decided by a panel of three judges, who would be selected by MPs from all parties.

Holland said the documents and the secrets within have to be protected and the Conservative proposal doesn’t achieve that.

“These are documents that could endanger our national security operations globally. Our relationships with our Five Eyes partners. It could endanger the lives of those that serve us.”

Holland said he hopes the Conservatives change their view, but he is prepared to work with the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to find a reasonable compromise.

“I am absolutely committed to continue to work with reasonable parties in the House and I’m very hopeful that the NDP and the Bloc won’t make a similar determination.”

• Email: rtumilty@postmedia.com | Twitter: ryantumilty

New book debunks Winnipeg-lab conspiracy theory but questions collaboration with Chinese military scientist

Journalist Elaine Dewar found 2019 virus shipment from National Microbiology Lab had no link to coronavirus

Karen Pauls · CBC News · Posted: Aug 31, 2021 9:00 AM CT | Last Updated: September 2

Xiangguo Qiu was escorted out of the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg in July 2019 along with her husband, Keding Cheng, months after the Public Health Agency of Canada reported a 'policy breach' at the lab to the RCMP. The two virologists were fired in January 2021. The RCMP is still investigating, and the reasons behind the firing remain a mystery to the public. (CBC)


A new book concludes co-operation between Canada's National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg and China's Wuhan Institute of Virology played no part in the origin of the coronavirus pandemic but raises questions about links between one of the researchers fired from the lab and a prominent Chinese virologist affiliated with the military.

Toronto-based freelance journalist Elaine Dewar says she set out to investigate the hypothesis that the coronavirus was leaked from the Wuhan lab by looking at the science and financial and geopolitical interests related to the theory.

As part of that, she looked into whether an approved shipment of Ebola and henipah viruses in March 2019 from the Winnipeg lab to Wuhan had anything to do with the pandemic after conspiracy theories suggesting it did surfaced online.

Months after that shipment, in July 2019, NML scientists Xiangguo Qiu and husband Keding Cheng were escorted from the Winnipeg lab and had their security clearances revoked. They were fired last January, and to date, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which runs Canada's only Level 4 biosafety lab, has not explained why.

Dewar did not find any connections between the 2019 shipment and the pandemic. CBC News has also debunked conspiracy theories making those connections.

"That particular conspiracy theory is nonsense, and there is absolutely no evidence to support it," said Dewar, whose book On the Origin of the Deadliest Pandemic in 100 Years: An Investigation comes out Tuesday.

"But there is evidence to support a very close link between the WIV and certain people at the NML."

WATCH | Journalist Elaine Dewar on some of the connections between labs in Winnipeg and Wuhan



Journalist Elaine Dewar outlines some of the connections between Canada's National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg and China's Wuhan Institute of Virology over the years. 2:34

Co-operation with military virologist

Dewar found that Qiu worked closely with Wei Chen, a prominent Chinese virologist who holds the rank of major-general in the People's Liberation Army, and tested Chen's Ebola vaccine at the Winnipeg lab.

There is no evidence that the work went beyond routine scientific collaboration, but Dewar says the co-operation raises questions about the kind of collaborations the sensitive government lab should undertake.

"When you have civilian researchers studying Ebola, how it works, how people are infected by it, what might be done to protect them against infection, that's one thing. When you have military scientists involved, it becomes a larger question because it can be weaponized," Dewar said during a recent interview at her Toronto home.

"When you have a relationship with a country which is unfriendly … you have to ask the question, do you want leading Chinese experts having access to a lab which requires secret clearance in this country?"

Journalist and author Elaine Dewar investigated whether the dismissal of the two scientists had anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic after conspiracy theories surfaced online. She debunked the theories in her new book, On the Origin of the Deadliest Pandemic in 100 Years: An Investigation. (Danielle Dewar)

Dewar also found that Qiu authored several scientific papers since she was fired from the lab. She says that suggests Qiu continued to have access to NML data, though PHAC says people who no longer work for the agency can still affiliate themselves with it in academic publications that reflect research done while they were there.

One paper, published in March 2020 and co-authored by Qiu, Chen and virologists from NML and the military-affiliated Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, drew on Ebola-related experiments performed while Qiu was at NML.

Chen, who was listed as senior author along with Qiu, is considered a national hero for her work on Ebola vaccines. She and her research team at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing are also leading China's coronavirus response.

"When this paper was submitted (in January 2020), Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng had been on suspension for six months. Did PHAC and the RCMP fail to notice that they continued to work with a leading military medical … figure in China even as the RCMP investigated them?" Dewar writes in her book.

She maintains the loss of Qiu's security clearance should have meant she no longer had access to the NML's scientific work.

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Wei Chen, top row far left, a celebrated vaccine researcher and a major-general in the People's Liberation Army, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in September 2020. Chen is a prominent vaccine researcher whose team at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences is leading China's pandemic response. She collaborated with Qiu on a vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus. 

(Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

In a statement provided to CBC News, PHAC said security clearance is mandatory for anyone accessing government networks or data but that access would not have been necessary to publish work based on past research done at the lab.

"All access is blocked if someone's security status/clearance is suspended or revoked," it said. "The analysis and write-up phase of the scientific process can take months to years following the experimental work ending. Final review of completed manuscripts does not require access to the laboratory or network.

"While Dr. Qiu is no longer employed by the Public Health Agency of Canada, her scientific contributions while at PHAC remain."

CBC News was not able to reach Qiu or Chen for comment.

China needed help setting up Level 4 lab

While CBC News and other media have reported on the scientific collaboration between Qiu and Chinese researchers, some of whom have military affiliations, Dewar's book provides some historical context.

China has large investments in regions of Africa impacted by Ebola, which is why it was looking for effective vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests.

However, Ebola research must be done in a Level 4 lab, and China did not have one until 2018. A Level 4 virology facility is equipped to handle the most serious and deadly human and animal diseases. The Winnipeg lab is one of only a handful in North America capable of handling pathogens requiring the highest level of containment, such as Ebola.

CBC News previously broke the story that Qiu had travelled repeatedly to Wuhan in 2017-18 to help set up the newly built Level 4 lab there, develop safety and operational protocols and train staff.

Meanwhile, scientists from Canada's national lab were doing ground-breaking work on Ebola.

In 2018, Qiu and her then-boss Gary Kobinger won a Governor General's Innovation Award for their work on ZMapp, an Ebola treatment that helped save lives during the outbreaks in West Africa between 2014-2016.

Dewar found research involving Qiu and Chen going back to at least 2015 that shows Qiu tested Chen's Ebola vaccine at the Winnipeg lab.

WATCH | Ebola survivor visits Winnipeg lab in 2016, thanks Qiu for vaccine work:


Xiangguo Qiu and staff at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg meet Junietta Macauley from Sierra Leone, whose life was saved by ZMapp, the Ebola vaccine they helped develop. 3:46

Details of firing still unclear

Meanwhile, the details of Qiu and Cheng's firing remain a mystery.

For months, opposition MPs have been demanding PHAC turn over unredacted documents pertaining to their dismissal, which PHAC had said was related to a "policy breach," and while the government recently dropped its attempt to block the release of the documents, Dewar is not confident we'll ever have all the answers.

"We have, instead of truth, a pile of cover-up going on," she said.

WATCH | Opposition presses government for details of NML firings:


Federal government grilled on microbiologists stripped of security clearance

After two scientists working at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg were stripped of their security clearance, national security experts have raised concerns about the possibility of espionage and, on Wednesday, MPs demanded answers in the House of Commons. 2:03

PHAC did confirm the NML underwent a physical security vulnerability assessment in May 2019 as part of ongoing reviews but said its screening and security procedures have not been updated independent of the Treasury Board Secretariat policy on government security it is subject to.

May 2019 is when PHAC referred this case to the Manitoba RCMP, which confirmed the investigation is still ongoing.

In this compelling whodunnit, Elaine Dewar reads the science, follows the money, and connects the geopolitical interests to the spin.

When the first TV newscast described a SARS-like flu affecting a distant Chinese metropolis, investigative journalist Elaine Dewar started asking questions: Was SARS-CoV-2 something that came from nature, as leading scientists insisted, or did it come from a lab, and what role might controversial experiments have played in its development? Why was Wuhan the pandemic's ground zero—and why, on the other side of the Atlantic, had two researchers been marched out of a lab in Winnipeg by the RCMP? Why were governments so slow to respond to the emerging pandemic, and why, now, is the government of China refusing to cooperate with the World Health Organization? And who, or what, is DRASTIC?

Locked down in Toronto with the world at a standstill, Dewar pored over newspapers and magazines, preprints and peer-reviewed journals, email chains and blacked-out responses to access to information requests; she conducted Zoom interviews and called telephone numbers until someone answered as she hunted down the truth of the virus’s origin. In this compelling whodunnit, she reads the science, follows the money, connects the geopolitical interests to the spin—and shows how leading science journals got it wrong, leaving it to interested citizens and junior scientists to pull out the truth.

On the Origin of the Deadliest Pandemic in 100 Years: An Investigation: Dewar, Elaine: 9781771964258: Books - Amazon.ca