Vaccine coming for rare bacteria affecting Ontario First Nations

Medical researchers in Thunder Bay are leading a national push to create a vaccine for a rare bacterial infection that seems to affect First Nations people more than non-Aboriginal Canadians.
The urgent work on a vaccine comes as the number of people admitted to hospitals with severe diseases related to Type A Haemophilus influenzae continues to include a large percentage of First Nations people from northwestern Ontario.
Meanwhile, as work on the vaccine goes on, researchers at Lakehead University’s Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) are also racing to discover more information about the invasive infections caused by the rarely studied bacteria.
“If we don’t move to take action now, it could become a very significant health issue, especially for Aboriginal people in northwestern Ontario,” said Eli Nix, a PhD researcher at the school.
Type A Haemophilus influenzae is similar to Type B Haemophilus influenzae, a bacterial infection that caused a large number of potentially fatal diseases such as meningitis, pneumonia and bacteremia over most of the last century.
Type B was essentially wiped out by a vaccine, which was first given to people in the early 1990s.
Over the past decade researchers across North America have noticed a number of cases of severe bacterial infections caused by Type A Haemophilus influenzae.
Type A was previously unknown to the medical world. Researchers now believe that as the vaccine wiped out Type B, it opened up a niche where other strains of the bacteria were able to flourish.
“Type B has been drastically reduced,” Nix said. “And since now we’ve basically eliminated it, we’re starting to see a shift. It may be that knocking out Type B opened up room for other strains, such as Type A, to move into.”
Nix’s supervisor, Dr. Marina Ulanova, was one of the first people in North America to notice the prevalence of diseases related to Type A Haemophilus influenzae. Through medical records of patients coming into regional hospitals, Ulanova stumbled upon a disturbing trend – a large percentage of patients suffering from diseases related to the rare bacteria were First Nations people from northwestern Ontario.
In a 2009 paper Ulanova documented the prevalence of the bacteria in First Nations people, setting off a scramble of government action and additional research.
In that report Ulanova did not find any cases of infection caused by Type A in persons of non-Aboriginal ethnicity: They were either Aboriginal or unknown ethnicity.
Other studies done in Canada’s arctic regions and in Alaska have also found a high prevalence of invasive infections caused by Type A Haemophilus influenzae in Aboriginal populations, leading to speculation that First Nations people may not have enough natural immunity against the bacteria to prevent illness.
But Nix said those theories have yet to be proven. That is why he and other researchers in Ulanova’s lab are hard at work trying to determine what makes some people susceptible to Type A invasive bacterial infections, while other people are not.
The research will complement the ongoing work to create a vaccine, conducted at Ulanova’s lab at NOSM in collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada and the National Microbiology Laboratory.
Nix said it is important to get more information on why certain people are susceptible to the bacteria, in order to determine how the vaccine should be administered and what populations would benefit.
He also said it is an interesting question for the medical community as a whole, as the assessment of immune status related to Type A Haemophilus influenzae has never before been studied.
The NOSM lab is now in the process of building partnerships with First Nations and Metis communities across Northwestern Ontario. Nix said it is crucial for the researchers to have both remote communities and urban Aboriginal populations involved in the study, in case geography plays a role in why some people have a lack of natural immunity.
“We can’t address the problem on our own,” Nix said. “We’re trying to build partnerships, relationships with Aboriginal communities to try and address this emerging threat to the health of Aboriginal people in northwestern Ontario.”
The study involves taking a small blood sample from participants, and then studying the antibodies found in the blood. By measuring both the quantity and quality of the antibodies that react to tests using the Type A bacteria, researchers can determine what, if any, natural antibodies exist.
Nix said his lab requires only a small amount of blood, equivalent to what would be taken in a normal blood test done by a doctor.
Invasive diseases associated with Type A Haemophilus influnezae are much the same as those caused by Type B – meningitis and blood poisoning especially. Those diseases affect infants and elders more often than healthy adults, although cases have been reported where adults who already have weakened immune systems get invasive bacterial infections.
Early symptoms of an invasive bacterial infection include fever and chills, stiffness in the neck, nausea and vomiting. These infections can result in permanent mental/physical disability, hearing loss or even death.
Anyone interested in participating in the study can contact Dr. Eli Nix at (807) 766-7491 or email: eli.nix@nosm.ca