Ontario's school-based HPV immunization program: school board assent and parental consent.

Objective: To evaluate the implementation of Ontario's publicly-funded, school-based HPV immunization program through a process evaluation.

Participants: The immunization program targets grade 8 females. Ontario vaccine-preventable disease managers were the key informants for this evaluation.

Risk factors for SARS transmission from patients requiring intubation: a multicentre investigation in Toronto, Canada.

Background: In the 2003 Toronto SARS outbreak, SARS-CoV was transmitted in hospitals despite adherence to infection control procedures. Considerable controversy resulted regarding which procedures and behaviours were associated with the greatest risk of SARS-CoV transmission.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted to identify risk factors for transmission of SARS-CoV during intubation from laboratory confirmed SARS patients to HCWs involved in their care.

Parotitis in a child infected with triple-reassortant influenza A virus in Canada in 2007.

Swine H3N2 influenza virus designated A/Ontario/1252/2007 was isolated from a child with parotitis. Diagnosis was confirmed by viral isolation and serological assays. A/Ontario/1252/2007 was related to H3N2 triple reassortants that emerged in swine in the United States in 1998.

A nosocomial outbreak of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus among healthy newborns and postpartum mothers.

Background: Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) has increasingly been isolated from individuals with no predisposing risk factors; however, such strains have rarely been linked to outbreaks in the hospital setting. The present study describes the investigation of an outbreak of CA-MRSA that occurred in the maternal-newborn unit of a large community teaching hospital in Toronto, Ontario.

Methods: Screening and clinical specimens collected from mothers and newborns delivered during the outbreak period, as well as from staff on the affected unit, were submitted for microbiological testing.

Ensuring a broad and inclusive approach: a provincial perspective on pandemic preparedness.

The SARS crisis revealed critical gaps in Ontario's health emergency response capacity, and identified, in the starkest terms possible, the need for improved emergency response planning. This article reviews the development of the Ontario Health Plan for an Influenza Pandemic (OHPIP), released in June 2005. Some key points arising from the provincial planning process include the necessity to: ensure a broad and inclusive development process; ensure the pandemic plan identifies: 1) clear roles and responsibilities of federal, provincial/territorial and municipal levels of government, 2) the approach to occupational health and safety issues and ethical decision-making, 3) a communications strategy linking all affected sectors and levels of government and health sector; 4) any commitments to antiviral stockpiling, vaccine and antiviral allocation and use, and an approach for drug delivery from provincial stockpiles to local public health units; 5) health human resource management and supplementation; and 6) key programs/services to be scaled back to maximize surge capacity; address best practices (e.