Media Releases and Task Force Announcements

Canadian Blood Services has been entrusted by the Public Health Agency of Canada through its COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) to continue researching the prevalence of antibodies to COVID-19 in blood donors.

Today, Statistics Canada is releasing results from the second cycle of the Canadian COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey (CCAHS). This survey provides a nationally representative measure of the population with antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Between April and August 2022, 54% of Canadian adults – or about 16.4 million Canadians – had antibodies indicating a past infection to SARS-CoV-2.

The Biobanque québécoise de la COVID-19 (BQC19) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded $1.175 million from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) through the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) for a project to study hybrid immunity.

In Canada, the vast majority of COVID-19 cases in the 0 to 18 age group have been mild or asymptomatic. This fact, combined with the reduction in routine COVID-19 laboratory testing across most of the country, means that the infection rates in children and adolescents are largely unknown.

As the pandemic continues in Canada and around the world, certain groups of people remain more vulnerable to the disease, including immunocompromised children. While vaccination remains a safe and effective option to protect this population, the number of doses needed for optimal protection has yet to be determined.

An analysis of data from 21 studies, funded by the Government of Canada through its COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) and that relied on blood testing, provides a clearer picture of the massive scale of the Omicron wave in Canada. Before the arrival of the Omicron variant, approximately 7% of Canadians had infection-acquired antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Between December 2021 and May 2022, the proportion rose by 45% of Canadians having antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

A COVID CommUNITY – South Asian study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) Open has found that South Asian communities living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) suffered disproportionately from COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic. The Government of Canada, through its COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF), invested approximately $1.5 million in this study to understand vaccine confidence and hesitancy in this population that has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

Nearly 30 per cent of Canadian adults – 9 million people – were infected during the Omicron variant wave early in 2022, compared with just 10 per cent who had been infected in the previous four waves, according to a new study led by Toronto researchers.

MONTREAL, May 9, 2022 - A new seroprevalence study of blood donors, conducted by Héma-Québec, estimates that more than one in four Quebec adults developed antibodies to COVID-19 due to infection between the start of the year and mid-March.

Montreal, May 3, 2022 – New findings, published in The Lancet Rheumatology, suggest that people with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) respond well to vaccination and that the COVID-19 vaccines in Canada are highly effective in protecting them against hospitalization from COVID-19. The results of this study are highly pertinent for people living with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis (a type of arthritis that characteristically affects the spine), psoriasis (a skin condition), and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) – the four patient populations included in the study, supported by the Government of Canada, through its COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF).