Healthcare & Medical: 1)Free COVID and flu vaccines now available; 2)Health Canada authorizes long-awaited drug to slow early-stage Alzheimer’s disease; 3) Rise in youth opioid use sparks urgent call for action; 4)Wait for core Ontario autism services tops 5 years: advocates

1)Free COVID and flu vaccines now available

Courtesy Barrie360.com and News Release

By Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, October 27, 2025

As we settle into fall, cases of common colds, COVID-19, seasonal influenza (flu) and other respiratory viruses begin to increase. The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) urges everyone to get immunized for flu and COVID-19. These free vaccines are available as of today—Monday, Oct. 27—from participating local pharmacies and some health care providers.  

Getting immunized early in the season helps maximize your protection against serious illness, especially during the winter months when respiratory viruses circulate the most. Young children, older adults, and those with underlying medical conditions are at increased risk of serious illness from these respiratory viruses. Along with getting immunized, there are simple and effective steps you can take to protect yourself and those around you:

• Stay home if you’re feeling unwell with any symptoms of a respiratory illness. Keep children home from school or child care if they’re sick.
• Avoid non-essential visits to hospitals, long-term care homes, or retirement residences if you’re not feeling well.
• Wash your hands frequently and clean high-touch surfaces regularly.
• Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze.
• Consider wearing a well-fitted medical mask in indoor public spaces, especially if you’re at higher risk of severe illness.
• If you’re sick, wear a mask in all public settings for 10 days after your symptoms begin (note: masks are not recommended for children under 2 years).

Parents and caregivers of children 6 months up to 5 years old who do not have a family doctor or nurse practitioner or who cannot find a local pharmacy to provide the flu shot or COVID-19 vaccine may make an appointment at one of the health unit’s immunization clinics.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine is also available this season for older adults 75 years and older, and some adults 60 through 74 years of age who meet specific high-risk criteria and have not received the vaccine before.

RSV protection is also available for babies up to 8 months old during their first RSV season and some high-risk young children up to 24 months of age. Beyfortus will be offered to all babies born after Oct. 1 prior to hospital discharge at birth, and those born before Oct. 1 can access through their family doctor or if they do not have a family doctor at a health unit  immunization clinic.

RSV vaccine is available for pregnant people if their baby will not be receiving Beyfortus. Pregnant people can discuss RSV vaccine with the health care provider.

Want weekly information on local respiratory virus activity? The Weekly Respiratory Virus Update, is an interactive data dashboard, updated every Tuesday, summarizing the most recent week’s influenza, COVID-19, and RSV activity. It provides an overview of circulating respiratory viruses in Simcoe Muskoka and, when available, across Ontario.

For more information about respiratory illnesses and vaccination, visit smdhu.org or contact the health unit at 705-721-7520 or 1-877-721-7520, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

2) Health Canada authorizes long-awaited drug to slow early-stage Alzheimer’s disease

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Barrie360.com and Canadian Press Staff

Health Canada has authorized a drug shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

Lecanemab is the first medication approved in Canada that targets the buildup of amyloid plaque in the brain, which is believed to be an underlying cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

The drug is a lab-made antibody that binds to the amyloid proteins and helps neutralize and clear them from the brain.

Lecanemab must be administered in the early stages of dementia when there is mild cognitive impairment.

Adam Morrison, a spokesperson for the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, says patients and their families have been anxiously awaiting the approval of Lecanemab — also known by its brand name Leqembi — in Canada.

Morrison said Alzheimer societies are urging Canada’s Drug Agency and provincial governments to quickly bring the drug to market and publicly fund it so all eligible patients can afford to take it, noting it costs about US$26,000 a year in other countries.

Lecanemab is a treatment, not a cure, that needs to be administered intravenously every two weeks, Morrison said.

“What we hear from our clients is that ‘this sounds like a drug that can give me more time. This can give me more time with my family,’ and that’s a really, really significant piece that we’ve been hearing about a lot,” he said.

Lecanemab is approved in about 50 countries, a news release from manufacturer Eisai Co., Ltd., said on Monday.

It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2023.

Lecanemab was tested in a global Phase 3 clinical trial, Eisai said in the release, noting that it would continue to “submit clinical assessment data captured from participants in real-world clinical practice.”

Possible side-effects of Lecanemab include brain swelling or bleeding, although in most cases they are visible on MRI scans but don’t cause any symptoms, said Dr. Andrew Frank, a cognitive neurologist and medical director of the Bruyère Memory Program in Ottawa.

“This is likely because the antibodies are reacting with the amyloid and as the amyloid protein is being cleared, there may be inflammation to do that which can lead to swelling in the brain and/or bleeding in the brain,” said Frank in an interview with The Canadian Press last year while awaiting approval of Lecanemab.

Frank, who has consulted for Eisai Canada, said symptoms can include headache, dizziness or lightheadedness, but in rare cases can also include serious conditions such as seizures or stroke-like symptoms.

Fewer than one per cent of clinical trial participants had “persistent or possibly permanent side-effects or symptoms” once the medication was stopped, he said.

“I support these medications being accessible to Canadians, so that they can make a decision on the risk-benefit balance themselves, with their families and with their physicians to make a choice on whether or not the benefit of slowing the disease outweighs the risk of those serious side-effects,” Frank said.

3) Rise in youth opioid use sparks urgent call for action

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Nicole Ireland, October 27, 2025

An editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday says more youth are using opioids and calls for urgent action to provide treatment when they become addicted.

“The scary thing is that we know that earlier onset of use is associated with more severe presentations and more likely progression to addiction or severe opioid use disorder,” said co-author Dr. Shawn Kelly, a pediatrician specializing in treating addiction in Ottawa.

Survey Data Shows Alarming Trends

Kelly and co-author Dr. Shannon Charlebois, medical editor of the CMAJ, cited data from the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, which found a dramatic rise in students using prescription painkillers for non-medical reasons — increasing from 12.7 per cent in 2021 to 21.8 per cent in 2023.

That survey also said students in grades 7 to 9 were more likely to report using those opioids than older students in grades 10 to 12. Another paper cited in the editorial found that some youth began using opioids when they were as young as 10 years old.

Hydromorphone Use Among Teens

Kelly said the data is “shocking,” but reflects what he sees in his practice.

He’s seeing an increase in youth using hydromorphone — an opioid prescribed for pain with the brand name Dilaudid — as a party drug they often call “dillies.”

It’s difficult to say why hydromorphone has become popular, Kelly said, but noted adolescents perceive “prescription opioids” as safer than “street drugs.”

However, youth are still in danger of overdosing amid a toxic drug supply, he said.

Emergency Visits and Deaths Among Youth

Nine per cent of all opioid-related emergency department visits in Ontario in 2021 were patients from 15 to 24 years of age. That age group also accounted for eight per cent of opioid-related deaths, the editorial said.

Barriers to Treatment Access

Early opioid use can lead to addiction that requires treatment with methadone or buprenorphine/naloxone (known by the brand name suboxone) but many primary care providers aren’t comfortable prescribing those medications to adolescents and teens — something that needs to change, the authors said.

Kelly said better access to those treatments will help prevent future overdoses and hardships — for youth now and later when they become adults.

“I know exactly what opioid use looks like in your 20s and I know how awful it gets and how housing instability or experiencing homelessness and human trafficking and criminality and all of the awful things that go with a significant opioid use disorder,” he said.

“Getting to intervene early … can make such a major difference in deflecting somebody from what is a horrible reality that you’d wish on nobody.”

Mental Health Crisis Compounds the Issue

In addition to a drug overdose crisis, youth are living with a “mental health crisis that has been worsening for over a decade (and) was exacerbated and accelerated by the pandemic,” Kelly said.

Many of his patients with opioid addiction also have mental health issues, especially depression, anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Inadequate access to psychological care for youth is another challenge that governments need to address, but methadone or suboxone can be prescribed without mental health support as a first step, Kelly said.

“They’re going to require treatment for all of these things in order to have successful full lives to their potential, but they have no opportunity to recover from their other mental health conditions if they’re dead,” he said.

Call to Action for Health-Care Providers and Parents

The editorial calls for anyone who treats young people — including family doctors, and pediatricians — to get the training they need to screen for drug use and prescribing methadone or suboxone when needed.

Some doctors may not realize they can now legally prescribe those medications, which relieve opioid withdrawal symptoms and cravings, Kelly said.

Health-care providers used to need a special exemption to prescribe methadone, but Health Canada lifted that requirement in 2018 in the midst of the overdose crisis.

Honest conversations between parents and their kids about drug use are also critical, Kelly said, noting that all parents of adolescents should have naloxone, which is used to reverse opioid overdoses, at home.

4) Wait for core Ontario autism services tops 5 years: advocates

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Allison Jones, Oct. 30, 2025

When Ashley Ferreira’s five-year-old son was diagnosed with autism in 2020 she never imagined that a five-year wait lay ahead for him to get access to government-funded core therapies.

“I thought that the diagnosis came with help,” she said. “It wasn’t until I started joining Facebook groups like the Ontario Autism Coalition that I was like, ‘Oh.’ It was a slap in the face.”

Families had been reporting wait times for access to core services under the Ontario Autism Program creeping upward in the past several years, so advocates set about doing a survey of the community.

Families starting to receive funding now to pay for core therapies including applied behaviour analysis, speech language pathology and occupational therapy are people who registered for the program five years ago, the survey found.

Children, Community and Social Services Minister Michael Parsa refused to say whether that is an acceptable length of time.

“We want to make sure that every family is supported, every child and every youth in this province has the opportunity to succeed and thrive,” he said when asked outside the legislature last week.

Figures obtained by the coalition through a freedom-of-information request show that more than 84,000 children are registered in the Ontario Autism Program to seek autism services and 19,600 of them are receiving funding to access core services.

Parsa touted the government’s record of more than doubling the budget for the autism program — to an expected $778 million this year — and expanding the services that qualify for funding as core therapy to include occupational therapy, speech language pathology and mental health supports.

As well, the Progressive Conservative government has introduced “pillars” families can access on a time-limited basis as they wait for funding for core services, including an entry-to-school program, urgent response services and support training for families.

But Ferreira said they were not relevant for her son, and what he really needed was the core services.

“I see the pillars as Band-Aid solutions,” she said. “They’re not continued support. Our children need continued support.”

Ferreira’s family has been paying out of pocket for the past five years for therapy for her son while she waited for government funding, accruing more than $100,000 in debt, she estimates.

“We’ve been paying out of pocket for five years for early intervention,” she said. “So he’s thriving at the moment, no thanks to the government.”

Ontario Autism Coalition president Alina Cameron said the government’s autism program is not providing enough help for the children who need it.

“Based on the 2021 Stats Can census, there are at least one in every 32 children in Ontario who are autistic,” she said at a recent press conference.

“That’s not rare. That’s a population, and right now it’s a population being failed by this government. There’s a human cost. Families are paying the price. Our survey found that a staggering percentage of autistic children and youth, 44 per cent, have at least one parent or caregiver who cannot work because of the demands of care.”

NDP critic Alexa Gilmour said the autism coalition’s survey is eye opening.

“It is a damning picture that it paints of the Conservative government that is utterly failing our most vulnerable children and families,” she said at the press conference.

“It’s asking them to trust in a safety net that isn’t there to catch them, that they have refused to provide. Less than one quarter of children registered for the Ontario Autism Program have been given access to the therapy that they were promised.”