Residents of long-term care facilities are at increased risk for serious outcomes of COVID-19. As vaccines are now being offered to this priority population, the Government of Canada is investing over $2 million through Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) for two studies in British Columbia (BC) and Alberta which will investigate how the immune systems of elderly residents and staff in these facilities respond to COVID-19 infection and vaccination.
“These long-term care studies are critically important for a number of reasons,” says Mel Krajden, MD, FRCPC, CITF Leadership Group member. He is also the Medical Director of BC Centre for Disease Control Public Health Laboratory, and Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia. “Residents who are exposed can now help us understand more about how immunity develops, and why elderly individuals have been so vulnerable to the virus,” he continues. “With vaccine rollout underway, we need to collect evidence now about how the immune systems of elderly people react to vaccines so that we can make the best use of vaccination to protect them.”
The objective of the first study, led by researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC), Providence Health Care, Simon Fraser University, and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, is to investigate how elderly peoples’ immune systems respond to COVID-19 vaccines. The researchers will also assess the viral, immunological and social factors that have contributed to COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities, to better understand why the disease has been fatal to so many residents.