Nunavut won’t immediately change policy on infant lung infections
IQALUIT, Nunavut — Nunavut’s medical health officer says the territory won’t immediately change its policy on prevention of lung infections in newborns despite having some of the highest rates anywhere in the world.
“What we’re going to need to do is sit down and look at all of our data before we make any more decisions,” Dr. Kim Barker said Friday.
The Canadian Medical Association Journal Open published a study on Tuesday that found some parts of the Canadian Arctic had astronomical rates of serious lung infections among weeks-old babies.
The study, by Anna Banerji of the University of Toronto, found more than 40 per cent of all babies born in Nunavut’s westernmost region in 2009 were later admitted to hospital with lung infections. In the area around western Hudson Bay, the figure was 24 per cent.