A Winnipeg father is running across Manitoba starting Friday to raise awareness for congenital cytomegalovirus or cCMV, a virus that babies in Manitoba’s neighbouring provinces are universally screened for.
Rob Tétrault said he hopes a bill, which would allow all newborns to get tested and receive timely treatment in the province, is passed by the Manitoba legislature.
The avid Winnipeg runner, who begins most mornings with a jog, clocks at least 12 hours of training a week.
Starting Friday, he’ll be doing about double that for his charity event Run with Rob, as he races his way across the province, in the hope of bringing universal newborn screening for cCMV to Manitoba.
“It’s detectable. It’s preventable. It’s treatable,” he told Global News on Sunday.
Tétrault and his wife first heard about cCMV, a common infection babies can get before birth, when their own son was born 15 years ago.
One in five infected newborns develops a lifelong disability, such as hearing and vision loss, experts say.
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“We’re lucky in that my son was identified and treated at birth, so my son’s had a phenomenal outcome,” Tétrault said.
Early treatment, like antiviral medications within the first six months, reduces the risk of long-term health problems, says infectious diseases pediatrician Fatima Kakkar in a letter of support for Tétrault.
But after that window, it’s usually too late, said Kakkar, who works at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine in Montreal.
“We’re doing this for those parents that are going to have to deal with this next week, next year,” Tétrault said.
In 2017, Manitoba became the first province to offer targeted screening, and since then, Ontario and Saskatchewan have opened up testing for all babies.
Manitoba NDP’s health critic, Uzoma Asagwara, joins Tétrault in wanting Manitoba to follow suit.
“Right now, there’s targeted screening that’s done, but that doesn’t capture the asymptomatic and sometimes symptomatic babies that get missed,” Asagwara said.
But a bill first introduced in 2021, now before the legislature a third time as of March, doesn’t have enough support, they said.
“This is actually going to financially benefit our economy, financially benefit our health care system,” Asagwara told Global News on Sunday.
Global News has reached out to the health minister’s office for comment.
Meanwhile, Tétrault plans to complete two half-marathons a day, from the Saskatchewan border to Ontario, with family and friends each step of the way.
“A child born in Kenora, a child born in Saskatoon, has a much better outcome than a child born in Manitoba. How does that feel as a Manitoban to hear that? It’s ridiculous. It’s frustrating.”
Tétrault will run 506 kilometres over 12 days in hopes newborns have a better chance for healthy lives.
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