Evidence of meeting #16 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vaccine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
7:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
We go now to Mr. Davies.
Mr. Davies, please go ahead. You have two and a half minutes.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Dr. Gerdts, on April 27, an article from Maclean's quoted you as saying:
The World Health Organization will try to regulate it, but we're seeing already that President Trump is not willing to listen to them.... If an American company produces a vaccine, Trump will try to ensure that all of it goes to Americans—regardless of what the WHO recommends.
Does the WHO have any authority to manage global vaccine supplies? Are there any international safeguards in place to ensure that vaccine supplies are distributed based on need, rather than on national wealth or clout?
7:10 p.m.
Director and Chief Executive Officer, VIDO-InterVac
What we have seen already is that certain countries will try to get access to technologies. You are probably aware that the American President tried to get access to a vaccine out of Germany, a technology that looks very promising. The WHO doesn't really have the authority to regulate this. I think what we will see now is that countries, as we discussed before, will try to ensure there is access to vaccines for their citizens.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Speaking of the WHO, they and multiple other governments have called for an international coordinating body to share access to the technology and know-how to develop COVID-19 vaccines and other medical tools free of patents and with fair pricing and accessibility conditions built in to ensure that people around the world can get access to these medical technologies. If your vaccine, which is being funded by the Canadian public, is shown to work, will VIDO-InterVac be making the technology available to governments and manufacturers around the world to be able to quickly scale up affordable production and access to it?
7:10 p.m.
Director and Chief Executive Officer, VIDO-InterVac
As you mentioned, there are various organizations, including CEPI, an international organization, and the WHO. There are global access strategies that are currently being established, and as part of a publicly funded research institute, we think it is very important for us that we ensure, as Dr. Hodgson said before, that our vaccine is available not only to Canadians but also to other countries that are in need of it.
7:15 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thanks.
You've also said:
We're...talking about a year before we have a vaccine ready. People are dying right now, and the cost to the global economy is already in the trillions. We need to have vaccines ready for whatever the next pathogen might be. And this is where we have to push the envelope.
Could you explain to this committee what you intended when you said “push the envelope”?
7:15 p.m.
Director and Chief Executive Officer, VIDO-InterVac
We are doing research now here at VIDO-InterVac where the goal is to have vaccines ready for the next pathogen, the next disease, when we don't even know what that pathogen looks like. Our goal is to develop these technologies, these vaccines that essentially would cover groups or maybe even families of pathogens. You might have a vaccine that protects against all coronaviruses, for example.
The goal would be to have such vaccines available and stockpiled, sitting somewhere now, so that if we had an outbreak like we saw in Wuhan, we could then quickly utilize that vaccine—even if it's not a perfect vaccine—to contain the outbreak and the spread of the disease as much as possible. Advances in science have made that possible now. We can structurally look at the similarities between these viruses and identify areas we should focus on in developing vaccine candidates.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Davies.
That brings round two to a close. We start round three with Ms. Jansen.
Ms. Jansen, please go ahead for five minutes.
April 30th, 2020 / 7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Thank you very much.
Dr. Fowler, in 2003 a report was released, “Learning from SARS: Renewal of Public Health in Canada”. That report mentioned it was necessary to develop “a comprehensive and national public health surveillance system that will collect, analyze, and disseminate laboratory and health care facility data on infectious diseases...to relevant stakeholders.”
Here we are in 2020 and we've heard from a number of witnesses today, yourselves included, that no such system for surveillance and data gathering exists within Canada. What grade would you give PHAC on pandemic preparedness?
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I would give PHAC a very high grade, based on the resources at their disposal. I would put it in that context.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay. How would you go from here and make sure that a reporting system becomes a reality? You mentioned numerous times the difficulty of longitudinal information gathering.
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Yes, I am a strong supporter of strong public health and strong funding for public health. Despite working in an intensive care unit, I see the value. It's a simple answer, but helping to fund PHAC a little more would be great work from the MPs and the community.
In terms of the sharing of information in the Canadian context through the different jurisdictions, I've encountered a lot of difficulties and red tape. Public health departments at a local level often share up to a provincial level, but those sharings don't often go to the federal level. Some work provincially and territorially with the federal government on facilitating that, I think, would go a great way to sharing.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay. What is the rate of recovery for those patients placed on respirators?
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
That's an excellent question.
In the early reports it looked pretty dismal, in that we saw from China and even from the United States that when people were overwhelmed, and only the sickest of patients were getting onto ventilators, the recovery rate was very low. Here at my hospital—it's not anecdotal because there's actually some data but it's a small sample—we haven't yet lost one patient who has been put on a ventilator. That speaks to the range of possibilities when you have the capacity to care for people.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay. Since the majority of coronavirus deaths in Canada appear to be happening in seniors care homes, should PHAC be looking at their current recommendations to ensure they are adequately dealing with the challenges those institutions are facing?
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Yes, 100%.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Considering the fact that a vaccine is not a viable short-term solution to enable Canada to get back up and running, what will we need in place to safely loosen restrictions? What does a measured approach look like, practically speaking, in your opinion?
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
This is speaking population-wise, not long-term care?
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I am conscious that I work in a critical care unit so that's a pretty limited scope of population health. However, having some sense of this, again, a measured approach would be looking at essential services, possibly still ensuring physical distancing among people, still be considering measures like wearing masks when people are in close confines or need to be and very close attention to case counts on a daily basis. I think we will have to pull back and forth for many cycles over the next many months.
7:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
In regard to masks, that has been a real back-and-forth thing. I know in the very beginning when we were at health committee we heard a lot about not wearing masks. Would you say an integral part of opening restrictions is that all people are wearing masks because they do actually prevent infection?
7:20 p.m.
Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
It depends upon the background prevalence of the virus in the population. When it's very rare, then it probably doesn't make a lot of sense by the numbers. When things are much more common, or if you're still a bit uncertain, then it probably makes some sense. I think that change in the prevalence within the population was in part underlying the change in recommendations that came out from PHAC. We don't do it in the hospital on a daily basis, but as the prevalence changes then we start to do it.
I think we're still in a grey area about whether it's helpful or not, but I would be cautious in moving away from the current policies.
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mrs. Jansen.
We go now to Dr. Powlowski.
Dr. Powlowski, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Dr. Fowler, I have one quick question. Did you say that all of the people you've put on a ventilator have lived?