Trudeau acknowledges charges in Nijjar killing, calls for commitment to democracy
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The world's first medical trial authorized to deliberately expose participants to the coronavirus is seeking more volunteers as it steps up efforts to help develop better vaccines.
The Oxford University trial was launched last April, three months after Britain became the first country to approve what are known as challenge trials for humans involving COVID-19.
Its first phase, still ongoing, has focused on finding out how much of the virus is needed to trigger an infection while the second will aim to determine the immune response needed to ward one off, the university said in a statement on Tuesday.
Researchers are close to establishing the weakest possible virus infection that assures about half of people exposed to it get asymptomatic or mild COVID-19.
They then plan to expose volunteers - all previously naturally infected or vaccinated - to that dose of the virus's original variant to determine what levels of antibodies or immune T-cells are required to prevent an infection.
"This is the immune response we then need to induce with a new vaccine," said Helen McShane, Oxford University professor of vaccinology and the study's chief investigator.
The trial's findings will help make future vaccine development much quicker and more efficient, the statement said.
Global immunologists have been seeking to pinpoint the immune reaction that a vaccine must produce to shield against the illness, known as a correlate of protection. Once discovered, the need for mass vaccine trials is greatly reduced.
Scientists have used human challenge trials for decades to develop treatments against many infectious diseases, but this is the first known such research into COVID-19.
A drawback is the risk of harm to volunteers contracting the disease but the university is taking precautions.
Participants will need to be healthy and aged 18-30. They will be quarantined for at least 17 days and any who develop symptoms will be given Regeneron's monoclonal antibody treatment Ronapreve.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Princess Anne paid tribute to veterans buried at a cemetery in British Columbia today, laying a wreath to honour the more than 2,500 military personnel and family members buried there.
Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, edging out Forever Young and Sierra Leone for the upset victory.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.