CITF-funded researchers and advisors, along with federal, provincial, and territorial government health officials, gathered in Vancouver for the CITF Scientific Meeting in early March 2023. The objective was to share research results and lessons learned from three years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly 70 investigators and trainees presented original research results in the form of e-posters with explanatory videos. We have uploaded many of the posters and accompanying videos below and will add even more as research teams give us permission to share publicly. The poster presentations offer a compelling snapshot of the knowledge that has been accumulated thanks to CITF funding.
Congregate settings
Occupational and Educational cohorts
Mental health and life satisfaction among Canadian paramedics during the COVID-19 pandemic
Presenter: Christopher MacDonald
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Brian Grunau
Characterizing SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and post-infection humoral and soluble immune responses
Presenter: Alyssa G. Burrows
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Anne Ellis
Innate immune competence of persons with SARS-CoV-2 infection during the fifth wave in Quebec City
Presenter: Hend Jarras
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Denis Boudreau, Marc-André Langlois
The impact of COVID-19 on the health of physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers: An interprovincial cohort study
Presenter: France Labrèche
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Nicola Cherry
Seroconversion and pseudo-neutralization in a cohort of food and retail workers in the Québec City region
Presenter: Abdelhadi DJAILEB
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Denis Boudreau
Tracking COVID-19 for Safer Schools study: How robust contact tracing and serology data helped support evidence-based public health decisions and school policies for the children and youth in British Columbia during the COVID-19 pandemic
Presenter: Allison Watts
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Pascal M. Lavoie
Older Canadians and long-term care residents
Descriptive analysis of post-vaccination anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels among long-term care facilities residents and incidence of COVID-19
Presenter: Bonita Lee
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Xiaoli (Lilly) Pang, Anne-Claude Gingras, Sheila O’Brien
Prospective Decentralized Study Evaluating the Impact of Age on Antibody Responses to COVID-19 Vaccines in Community Dwelling Adults to 48 weeks Post Primary Vaccine Series
Presenter: Sharon Walmsley
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Sharon Walmsley
CMV infection in long term care residents alters global immunologic phenotype but not primary SARS-CoV-2 response
Presenter: Sharon Oldford
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Lisa Barrett
Correctional Facilities
Neutralization of Omicron Subvariants BA.5 and BQ.1 After Four COVID-19 Vaccine Doses in PLWH Receiving ART
Presenter: Hope Lapointe
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Marc Romney and Mark Brockman
The Serologic Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Amongst Incarcerated Persons in Provincial Correctional Facilities in Saskatchewan
Presenter: Danielle Myrah
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Alexander Wong
Knowledge mobilization
Policy and decision-making
Timeliness of reporting of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence results and their utility for infectious disease surveillance
Presenter: Claire Donnici
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Rahul Arora, David Buckeridge
Accuracy of self-reported COVID-19 vaccination status compared to a public health vaccination registry
Presenter: Patrick Archambault
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Corinne Hohl
Community engagement
The Wellness Hub: Assessment of long-term care homes’ and retirement homes’ during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform a responsive, community of practice intervention
Presenter: Christine Fahim
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Sharon Straus
Co-creating implementation strategies to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 exposure risks and facilitate wellness in long-term care and retirement homes: Wellness Hub
Presenter: Jamie Boyd
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Sharon Straus, Allison McGeer
Research recruitment and consent methods in a pandemic: A qualitative study of COVID-19 patients’ perspectives
Presenter: Erica Lau
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Corinne Hohl
Lessons learned: Mechanics of operating a large-scale COVID-19 immunity study in long-term care residents
Presenter: Tara Kajaks
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Dawn Bowdish, Andrew Costa
Pediatrics
COVID-19 infections and other related illnesses in the pediatric population
Factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 testing and test positivity in children and parents: A longitudinal cohort study
Presenter: Mary Aglipay
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jonathon Maguire, Jeff Kwong
Waning antibody immunity against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent resurgence of RSV cases in young children
Presenter: Marina Vineta Paramo
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Pascal Lavoie
COVID-19 testing, vaccination and non-pharmaceutical interventions in the pediatric population
Factors associated with COVID-19 vaccination in young children: A cohort study
Presenter: Xuedi Li
- CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jonathon Maguire
Parental setting of routines, limits, and child screen time during COVID-19: A cohort study
Presenter: Amanda Lien
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jonathon Maguire
Parents’ perspectives on COVID-19 vaccinations for children: “I am not an anti-vaxxer. I am just trying to gather information and make the best decision.”
Presenter: Jannah Wigle, Kathryn Hodwitz
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jonathon Maguire
Temporal trends in adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions among children and parents in the Greater Toronto Area
Presenter: Mary Aglipay
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jonathon Maguire, Jeff Kwong
Changes in pediatric movement behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic by stages of lockdown in Ontario, Canada: A longitudinal cohort study
Presenter: Priya Patel
- CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jonathon Maguire
Priority populations
Vaccination in high-risk patient populations
3rd and 4th doses of vaccines broaden and stabilize immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in immunocompromised patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases
- Presenter: Michelle W. Cheung
- CITF-FUNDED PIs: Tania Watts, Vinod Chandran, Anne-Claude Gingras
Three doses of COVID-19 vaccines in people with HIV: Immunogenicity and effects on HIV reservoir
Presenter: Vitaliy Matveev
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Mario Ostrowski, Jennifer Gommerman, Jane Heffernan, Anne-Claude Gingras
The Vaccine Immunogenicity and Safety in ImmunoDeficient patients (VISID) study: Immunological responses of patients with primary and secondary immunodeficiencies to SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 vaccines, and breakthrough infections in Canada
Presenter: Dana Unninayar
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Juthaporn Cowan, Emilia Falcone, Donald Vinh, Karina Top, Helen Decaluwe, Manish Sadarangani, Marc-André Langlois, Lisa Barrett
SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-induced T-cell response after three doses in people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy compared to seronegative controls (CTN 328 study)
Presenter: Yulia Alexandrova
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Aslam Anis
Dynamics of cellular immune responses elicited by COVID-19 vaccines in older adults and people living with HIV receiving suppressive ART
Presenter: Mark Brockman
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Mark Brockman, Marc Romney
Case management in high-risk patient populations
Frailty, age and outcomes of hospitalized adults differ across waves of the COVID-19 pandemic: A report from the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN) Serious Outcomes Surveillance (SOS) Network
Presenter: Melissa Andrew
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Shelly McNeil, Allison McGeer, Mark Loeb
Vaccination during pregnancy
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic among 2SLGBTQQIA+ populations in Canada
Presenter: Ben Klassen
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Nathan Lachowsky
SARS-CoV-2 antibody seropositivity among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM) in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver and the role of living with HIV (LWH)
Presenter: Milada Dvorakova
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Nathan Lachowsky, Daniel Grace, Marc-André Langlois, Jesse Papenburg
Neighbourhood marginalization as a social determinant of health for SARS-CoV-2 outcomes in Canadian emergency departments
- Presenter: David Yeom
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Corinne Hohl
Post-COVID condition
Long COVID prevalence from Omicron BA.1/1.1: National cohort study of Canadian adults
Presenter: Sze Hang (Hana) Fu
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Prabhat Jha
Effect of vaccination on post-acute COVID-19 sequelae (PACS): A cross-sectional study
Presenter: Mei Nee Chiu
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Manali Mukherjee, Ishac Nazy and Dawn Bowdish
Evaluation of immune cell exhaustion, tolerance and metabolism in Post-Covid Condition
Presenter: Sonia Poenaru
- CITF-FUNDED PIs: Angela Crawley
COVID-19 immunology
General population serosurvey
SeroTracker: Lessons learned to optimize serosurveillance platforms and methodology for COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses
Presenter: Mairead Whelan
- CITF-FUNDED PIs: Rahul Arora
Global SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence from January 2020 to April 2022: A systematic review and meta-analysis of standardized population-based studies
Presenter: Harriet Ware
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Rahul Arora, David Buckeridge
Inferring the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection from wastewater and serological data
Presenter: Nathan Duarte
CITF-FUNDED PIs: David Buckeridge, Jane Heffernan, Rahul Arora
Immune response to SARS-CoV-2
Determining SARS-CoV-2 infection rates by nucleocapsid seropositivity in a vaccinated population with high seroprevalence
Presenter: Karen Colwill
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Anne-Claude Gingras, Keith Jarvi, Allison McGeer
Investigation of the interplay between sex and age in antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination
Presenter: Miroslava Cuperlovic-Culf
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Angela Crawley
Vaccine & Immunity
Vaccine Immunology
Systemic and mucosal immune responses are variably induced in response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination in a healthy pediatric cohort
Presenter: Salma Sheik-Mohamed
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jennifer Gommerman, Anne-Claude Gingras
Initial spike-specific Th1-like responses to mRNA vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 correlate with the durability of serological neutralizing antibody titers
Presenter: Philip Samaan
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Mario Ostrowski, Allison McGeer, Sharon Straus, Anne-Claude Gingras
Humoral immune responses to hybrid immunity and heterologous COVID-19 vaccination: A Stop the Spread Ottawa (SSO) analysis
Presenter: Alexa Keeshan
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Marc-André Langlois, Angela Crawley
Intranasal immunization of HD-Ad-FS induces robust systemic and airway mucosal immunities against SARS-CoV-2 and variant infection in mice and hamsters
Presenter: Peter Zhou
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jun Liu, Anne-Claude Gingras
Profiling antibody immunity to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination
Presenter: Liam Golding
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Pascal Lavoie, Brian Grunau
Humoral responses to bivalent vs. monovalent vaccine boosters in Canada: A Stop the Spread Ottawa (SSO) comparative analysis
Presenter: Marc-André Langlois
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Marc-André Langlois, Angela Crawley
Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 antibody response by demographic and clinical characteristics following natural infection and vaccination: The CANCOV study.
Presenter: Victoria Russell
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Angela Cheung, Anne-Claude Gingras, Juthaporn Cowan
Vaccine safety and effectiveness
COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness by vaccine administration schedule: A CCEDRRN study
Presenter: Amber Cragg
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Corinne Hohl, Jeffrey Kwong
Protective effectiveness of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection and hybrid immunity against Omicron infection and severe disease: A systematic review and meta-regression
Presenter: Xiaomeng Ma
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Rahul Arora, David Buckeridge
Immunogenicity and adverse events following immunization with alternate schedules of authorized COVID-19 vaccines in Canada: MOSAIC study (Mix and match of the second cOvid-19 vaccine dose for SAfety and ImmunogeniCity: a Canadian Immunization Research Network Study (CIRN)
Presenter: Joanne Langley
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Joanne Langley, Manish Sadarangani, Tania Watts, Juthaporn Cowan
Vaccine Effectiveness against Omicron hospital admission and severe outcomes: a report from the CIRN Serious Outcomes Surveillance Network
Presenter: Shelly McNeil
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Shelly McNeil
Are post-vaccination antibody levels correlated with protection against COVID after household exposure?
Presenter: Christopher Kandel
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Allison McGeer
A multiprovincial analysis of the incidence of myocarditis or pericarditis after mRNA vaccination by varying dosing intervals, compared to the incidence after SARS-CoV-2 infection: a Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN) study.
Presenter: Zaeema Naveed
CITF-FUNDED PIs: Jeffery C. Kwong
What is serosurveillance and why is it important?
Serosurveillance is a common way of seeing how many people have been previously infected with a certain infectious agent, in this case SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. Blood samples from hundreds of thousands of Canadians are currently being tested to check levels of antibodies, which suggest a past infection. Serosurveillance can also help determine priority groups for vaccination and will be used to monitor the effectiveness of vaccines.

What does “vaccine surveillance” mean?
Vaccine surveillance includes studies of vaccine effectiveness (how good vaccines are at preventing severe disease, new infections, and transmission) and safety (identifying and quantifying the vaccine adverse effects). Although vaccines go through numerous trials before being approved for use, it is crucial to monitor their effectiveness and safety within a broader population and with various population groups (children, pregnant women, elderly, etc.).
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