Growing crisis of communicable disease in Canada in tandem with US cuts

Canada must address the growing crisis of communicable diseases that has occurred in tandem with a rise in misinformation that threatens our health systems, argue the authors in an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“A crisis of communicable diseases is unfolding in North America, just as Canada’s health systems’ responses are being hampered by the dismantling of public health and research infrastructure in the United States,” writes family physician Dr. Shannon Charlebois, medical editor, CMAJ, with co-author Dr. Jasmine Pawa, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario.

“Coordinated attacks on US health institutions by the country’s executive office have drastically reduced their capacity to collect, interpret, and share data in the service of public health delivery. This coincides with a concerning spread of novel and existing communicable diseases across the continent, including in Canada.”

The spillover effect of changes in the US will likely affect Canada and other countries around the globe, as programs to track infectious diseases and address potential pandemic threats like avian flu have been cut or canceled, and specialized staff with the capacity to rapidly develop reliable tests have been fired. Canada and other countries have relied on this work for disease surveillance and public health preparedness.

Now is the time for Canada to act on long-standing calls to strengthen health surveillance systems, improve interoperability and data exchange between electronic medical records and health systems, and better document and report rates of vaccine coverage.

The editorial outlines the threats from several infectious diseases to Canadians—information the public should be made aware of. However, “people living in Canada are vulnerable to a cross-border bleed of not only microorganisms, but also of attitudes, health misinformation, and exposure to biased US media,” write Charlebois and Pawa.

“Canada does not have control over the situation south of the border, but strengthening the national capacity to manage communicable diseases by optimizing data collection and interprovincial sharing of the information required to do this is possible.”