Nunavut’s health department declared an end to years-long tuberculosis outbreaks in two Baffin Island communities on Thursday.

Pangnirtung, a hamlet 45 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, had the largest outbreak of TB in the territory in at least seven years. The outbreak was declared in November, 2021, and resulted in 47 active TB cases and 225 latent or “sleeping” infections, which are asymptomatic and non-contagious.

Measles cases continue to multiply in Alberta, reaching a total of 1,105, while Ontario is beginning to see transmission slow down.

Alberta, in its provincial update on Thursday, confirmed 27 new cases over the last 24 hours. The province has the highest per-capita rate of measles in Canada and is among the most-affected jurisdictions in North America.

The majority of cases in Alberta are concentrated in the province’s south, an area where the resurgence of the previously forgotten disease has exposed division over vaccines and faith.

Fewer Canadians died from opioid overdoses last year, new national data show, but a regional breakdown paints a complicated picture of the drug toxicity crisis that eased in some provinces but worsened in others.

The Public Health Agency of Canada released on Wednesday figures on substance-related deaths and harms in 2024. Nearly 7,150 opioid deaths were reported last year, a 13-per-cent decline compared with 2023. There was also a 22-per-cent reduction in stimulant deaths.

A rock slide killed at least one person and injured others on a popular hiking trail in the Canadian Rocky Mountains on Thursday, according to authorities.

The RCMP and Parks Canada, in a joint statement Thursday evening, confirmed one person was found dead at the scene of the slide, near Bow Glacier Falls in Banff National Park. Two people were airlifted to hospital and another was transported by ground ambulance, the statement said.

The quiet streets of Taber, a small town in Southern Alberta, still hold reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taped to the windows of the Taber town office and a local bank are posters that encourage physical distancing. Pinned to the fence of a home near the only major highway that runs through the town is an anti-Trudeau tarp expressing support for protestors who opposed vaccine mandates during the 2022 Coutts border blockade.

A federally appointed expert panel is recommending that the Public Health Agency of Canada modernize and reform a task force that advises family doctors on preventative care subjects ranging from breast cancer screening to fracture prevention.

The governance, mandate and processes of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, an independent panel of 15 medical experts that creates national guidelines on preventative health care, have been under review since last May.

Canadians are waiting longer for some surgeries, including for cancer and knee replacements, than they were before the pandemic, even as the number of procedures being performed has increased, according to a new report.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), in an analysis released on Thursday, said the country’s aging population, health work-force shortages and more medically complex patients are reasons for the delays. This is in addition to competition for limited hospital resources, such as operating rooms and beds.