Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a) of the question, yes, the Minister of Health requires a manufacturer to submit an application for approval of a new indication for a drug that is already approved for a different indication. However, health care practitioners may choose to prescribe a drug outside of its approved indication, also called off-label use. Off-label use falls under the “practice of medicine” and is regulated at the provincial and territorial level.
Regarding parts (b) and (c), Health Canada’s bureau of gastroenterology, infection and viral diseases, which is part of the pharmaceutical drugs directorate, received 17 inquiries in its inquiries mailbox related to the use of ivermectin for the prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19. All inquiries received were from the general public.
In general, inquiries made to Health Canada, or HC, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, or PHAC, about ivermectin for the prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19 are not systematically tracked in a centralized database. HC and PHAC concluded that producing and validating a comprehensive response to this question would require a manual collection of information that is not possible in the time allotted and could lead to the disclosure of incomplete and misleading information.
However, ministerial correspondence is tracked centrally. Based on the question, 123 pieces of ministerial correspondence were identified and are broken down as follows: 115 pieces from the general public; four from health care professionals; one from a member of provincial, territorial or federal Parliament; and three from organizations.
Regarding part (d), Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada do not track this information.