Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press

Public health agencies are encouraging people who received a first dose of mpox vaccine over the last two years to make sure they get a second dose. 

Many people at risk for mpox exposure got vaccinated in Canada beginning in spring 2022, when a global outbreak of the virus was declared, Canada's chief public health officer said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

But a lot of them never got a second dose, which is recommended at least 28 days after the first shot.

The type of mpox spreading rapidly through several African countries could arrive in Canada, where that strain hasn't appeared before, Canadian experts say.  

The detection of clade I mpox in Sweden in someone who had travelled to an affected African country is a "harbinger" of broader spread, said Dr. Fahad Razak, an internal medicine specialist and epidemiologist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. 

The Public Health Agency of Sweden said Thursday it is the first case of clade I mpox to be diagnosed outside the African continent. 

The World Health Organization's declaration of mpox as a global public health emergency means Canada must do its part to help stem outbreaks of the virus in Africa, experts say. 

"Where there is a fire, we all put it out quickly and the whole village is safe. If you allow one house to burn in a village, sooner or later that fire is coming for you," said Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada Research Chair in epidemiology and global health at McGill University in Montreal.

A national task force that provides guidance for primary health-care providers is not lowering the recommended breast cancer screening age to 40, despite urging from several cancer specialists, surgeons and radiologists. 

The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care has been reviewing its current advice that women start routine breast cancer screening at age 50.

It holds firm on that position, and on previous advice against routine screening past age 74.

As wildfires rage in British Columbia, the family of a nine-year-old boy who died last summer is trying to protect people from poor air quality due to smoke this year.  

Amber Vigh says it's "scary" to know the wildfire season is once again in full swing and she is feeling "probably a little bit of PTSD." 

But she's hoping that Carter's Project, a partnership between the family and the BC Lung Foundation, will help make a difference.

Amid a rise in measles cases in other countries and a handful of confirmed cases in Canada, the national public health agency "strongly advises" everyone check that they're fully immunized against measles, especially before travelling.

About one in nine Canadian adults have had long-term symptoms from COVID-19 infection, according to a Statistics Canada report issued Friday. 

That amounts to 3.5 million Canadians, it said. 

Almost 80 per cent of those people with long-term symptoms have them for six months or more, the report said, including 42 per cent who had them for a year or more. 

Health Canada has granted approval to lift a ban on blood donations from people who lived or travelled in the United Kingdom, Ireland or France for long periods of time in the 1980s and 1990s, Canadian Blood Services said Wednesday. 

The ban was adopted more than two decades ago by blood agencies in many countries to prevent the transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease."

A new toll-free, three-digit suicide prevention helpline launched across Canada on Thursday morning.

People having suicidal thoughts or other mental health distress can now call or text 988 to reach a trained responder 24 hours a day, seven days a week — no matter where they live in the country.

Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) says people should get another COVID-19 vaccine booster in the fall if it's been at least six months since their last dose or COVID-19 infection. 

It says the booster doses will be new formulations updated to target more recent, immune-evasive variants. 

NACI continues to strongly recommend that anyone five years of age and older who hasn't yet been vaccinated should be immunized with a primary two-dose series of an mRNA vaccine.