Canadian retail pharmacy Rexall is now offering home deliveries of Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus, Novo Nordisk Canada, the drugmaker behind the GLP-1 drugs, said in a statement Wednesday.

The partnership between the two companies aims to provide Canadians with home access to Ozempic and Wegovy semaglutide injections and Rybelsus oral tablets.

The service, called Novo Nordisk Care Rx, has launched across all Canadian provinces and territories, except Quebec, the company said.

The support will be delivered through Rexall’s online pharmacy, Rexall Direct, and Canadians can order the medication “right to their doorstep with pricing in line with in-store pharmacy,” Novo Nordisk said.

Patients can receive the treatments at home for “no additional cost” and will have the option of chatting with a Rexall pharmacist over the phone to “receive personalized education, advice, and ongoing support.”

“Through this collaboration, customers can confidently access Ozempic and Wegovy products from a trusted pharmacy, receive personalized support and guidance from our pharmacists, and manage their care from the comfort of their own home,” Rexall COO Jeff Boutilier said in a statement.

3:58 Generic version of Ozempic approved in Canada: What you need to know

Over the last few weeks, Health Canada approved two generic versions of semaglutide, the medication in brand-name drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

The first one, by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories in India, was approved in April and the second, by a Canadian company called Apotex, was approved earlier this month.

Canada is the first G7 country to authorize generic semaglutide. There are now seven other submissions currently under review for generic semaglutide by different companies.

According to Felix, a Canadian integrated health-care platform, the average cost of Ozempic injections can be between $200 and $450 per month, depending on the province.

Wegovy’s current list price is an expected $5,066 per patient per year, or roughly $400 per month.

Health Canada has stated that many generic medications are 45 to 90 per cent cheaper than the brand-name versions.

1:24 Health Canada approves generic semaglutide for adults with type 2 diabetes

There have now been many studies and analyses that suggest that the use of GLP-1 drugs goes beyond just weight loss and diabetes, with potential benefits ranging from helping mental illness and substance abuse to kidney disease, heart disease and even osteoarthritis, some experts say.

While multiple studies have said there is data suggesting benefits from semaglutide, others have also found risks.

A 2023 study out of the University of British Columbia found that GLP-1 drugs were associated with an increased risk of stomach paralysis, pancreatitis and bowel obstruction.

In 2024, a Harvard study found that the drugs were also linked to an increased risk of sudden and irreversible vision loss and blindness.

Some of the more common side effects associated with semaglutide include belching, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, stomach pain, indigestion and nausea.

— with files from Global’s Adriana Fallico

French authorities on Wednesday confined 1,700 passengers and crew to a cruise ship docked in Bordeaux after a passenger died and about 50 fell ill with suspected gastrointestinal illness (GII), otherwise known as norovirus, the Ambassador Cruise Line confirmed to Global News.

The ship, which has 1,187 guests on board, the majority of whom are British and Irish nationals, and 514 crew, arrived in the French town on Tuesday, where French health officials boarded.

1:53 ‘No sign’ of larger hantavirus outbreak: WHO

“As of 11:00 a.m. UK time on 13 May 2026, there are forty-eight active guest cases of GII onboard Ambition and one crew case,” the cruise liner told Global News in a statement.

The cause of death for the passenger, who was 90, is pending confirmation from the coroner, according to The Guardian.

The uptick in cases seems to have occurred on May 9, following embarkation in Liverpool on England’s northwest coast, the company said. The ship had departed from Belfast a day prior on a planned 14-day excursion.

Upon arrival in Bordeaux, French authorities conducted a “routine” review of the ship’s health status and records and collected samples for lab testing at Bordeaux University Hospital.

“While the investigation and testing are ongoing, all guests and crew have been instructed to remain onboard under the direction of the local shore authorities. Once clearance is granted, guests will be permitted to disembark,” the statement said.

4:34 How to manage symptoms of the highly infectious Norovirus

“We would like to reassure guests that we take any illnesses aboard our fleet extremely seriously. Enhanced sanitation and prevention protocols were immediately implemented across the ship in line with established public health procedures following the initial reports of illness,” it continued.

All shore excursions were cancelled and refunded, and medical consultations relating to GII are being provided free of charge, the cruise liner said.

The outbreak comes amid an unrelated wave of hantavirus cases believed to have originated on a cruise ship moored in Cape Verde, a small island off the coast of West Africa, and reports of norovirus aboard a Caribbean cruise.

Earlier this week, more than 100 passengers and crew members fell ill during a norovirus outbreak aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise ship, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC said that 102 passengers and 13 crew members reported becoming ill during the voyage, which took place from April 28 to May 11.

Norovirus is highly contagious and thrives in places where people gather in close quarters, making cruise ships susceptible to outbreaks, the U.S. health organization says.

According to the CDC, norovirus can be contracted from an infected person, contaminated food or water, or by touching contaminated surfaces. The virus causes inflammation of the stomach or intestines, leading to stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.

The outbreak on the Caribbean Princess comes more than a month after another norovirus outbreak was reported on the cruise line’s Star Princess ship.

In March, the CDC reported that 141 passengers and 52 crew members became ill with norovirus aboard the Star Princess cruise ship. The ship left Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and made stops in the Caribbean, Honduras, Belize and the Mexican Riviera.

In April 2025, 240 people had fallen sick on the Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2, following a norovirus outbreak.

–– With files from Global News’ Katie Scott

A French woman infected in the deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship is critically ill and being treated with an artificial lung, a doctor at the Paris hospital caring for the sickened passenger said Tuesday. The outbreak has now reached 11 total reported cases, 9 of which have been confirmed.

Three people on the cruise died, including a Dutch couple that health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America.

The French passenger hospitalized in Paris has a severe form of the disease that has caused life-threatening lung and heart problems, said Dr. Xavier Lescure, an infectious disease specialist at Bichat Hospital.

3:47 Canadians from hantavirus-stricken cruise ship isolating in B.C.

He said the woman is on a life-support device that pumps blood through an artificial lung, providing it with oxygen and returning it to the body. The hope is that the device relieves enough pressure on the lungs and heart to give them some time to recover. Lescure called it “the final stage of supportive care.”

With the evacuation of all passengers and many crew members completed, the MV Hondius is now sailing back to the Netherlands, where it will be cleaned and disinfected.

The director of the World Health Organization said confirmed and suspected cases have only been reported among the cruise ship’s passengers or crew.

“At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general. He added: “But of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.”

The latest person confirmed to be infected is a Spanish passenger who tested positive for hantavirus after being evacuated from the ship, Spain’s health ministry said Tuesday. The passenger was in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid.

Health authorities say it is the first hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship. While there is no cure or vaccine for hantavirus, the WHO says early detection and treatment improves survival rates.

Argentina’s health ministry said Tuesday a team of scientific experts will be dispatched in the coming days to investigate the origin of outbreak.

A Dutch couple, identified by the WHO as the first cruise passengers infected with hantavirus, spent several months in Argentina and neighboring South American countries before boarding the cruise ship. The husband and wife later died.

1:43 Public health risk remains low in global hantavirus outbreak: WHO

Argentine officials have said the couple took a bird-watching tour that included a stop at a garbage dump where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection. The health ministry said its team will investigate the landfill and other locations the couple visited where rats known to carry the virus are found, although local officials in the province where the cruise departed have challenged the theory it began there.

A total of 87 passengers and 35 crew were escorted from the ship to shore in Tenerife by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks in a carefully choreographed effort that ended Monday night.

Two aircraft arrived in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven overnight carrying Dutch nationals as well as passengers from Australia and New Zealand and crew members from the Philippines. All were placed into quarantine, according to the Dutch government.

Some crew stayed aboard the ship and set course for the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, said ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions.

1:58 Doctors reiterate hantavirus ‘very different disease’ from COVID-19

Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms — which can include fever, chills and muscle aches — usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

WHO chief Tedros has advised that returning passengers should stay in quarantine, either in their homes or in other facilities, for 42 days. He added that WHO cannot enforce its guidance, and that different countries may handle the monitoring of passengers without symptoms in different ways.

Twelve employees at a Dutch hospital where a passenger from the Hondius is being treated have to quarantine for six weeks after improperly handling bodily fluids, Radboud University Medical Center said in a statement Monday night.

The “risk of infection is low” the hospital said, but it was requiring the dozen employees to go into preventive quarantine as a “precaution.”

3:37 Three people isolating in Ontario after Hantavirus exposure

The hospital in the eastern city of Nijmegen received a passenger last week from one of the evacuation flights that landed in the Netherlands and the person has since tested positive for hantavirus.

Blood and urine from the patient should have been handled “according to a stricter procedure,” the hospital said.

With four Canadians currently isolating across the country after exposure on the hantavirus-hit MV Hondius cruise ship, the outbreak raises the question of whether there are immunizations available for the virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that “there is no licenced specific antiviral treatment or vaccine for hantavirus infection.”

Dr. Fahad Razek, an internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, said a hantavirus vaccine is “an active area of studying globally.”

Among those firms that have been working on a vaccine is Moderna, which saw a spike in its stocks following reports that the pharmaceutical company is conducting early-stage vaccine research on hantaviruses with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Moderna is also working alongside the Vaccine Innovation Center at Korea University College of Medicine on a potential immunization.

Shares of Moderna were up nearly seven per cent in recent trading, following a 12 per cent jump Friday.

1:58 Doctors reiterate hantavirus ‘very different disease’ from COVID-19

“There’s various approaches being used, including, for example, an mRNA-based approach that is being developed by Moderna, along with partners in Asian countries,” Razek said. “They are something that are in development, but they would then subsequently have to go through clinical trials, monitor for human safety.

“There would be many steps to do before we can consider that to be something that could be actually deployed in the context of an outbreak like what we’re seeing.”

Dr. Donald Cuong Vinh, a professor of medicine and a clinician-scientist at the McGill University Health Centre, said the hantavirus outbreak is a “stark reminder” of the COVID-19 pandemic for many people.

“I think we have to go back to COVID at the start of the pandemic, when again, we had no vaccines and we had the fear of the general public,” he said.

“That fear should be our impetus to invest continuously in science and research because we were able to get over the challenges of the COVID pandemic because of vaccines and because of research that allowed new drugs and therapies to be developed.” 

Vinh said the current outbreak is a “clarion call that we need to mobilize research,” especially as the outbreak remains a focal point of conversation.

“We still need the time to be able to test it, test to make sure it’s efficacious, test to make sure that it’s safe, and that time may not be what’s on our side if the virus is propagating faster than we would like,” he said.

9:42 Hantavirus outbreak: 4 Canadians isolating have ‘no symptoms’ after leaving cruise ship, doctor says

The outbreak on the cruise ship has left three dead and 11 other identified cases, nine of which are confirmed.

The WHO stated in a press conference Monday that although there is “no sign” of a larger hantavirus outbreak, the organization expects “more cases given the dynamics of spread on a ship and the virus’ incubation period.”

“There have been no deaths since 2nd of May, when WHO was first informed of the cluster of cases. All suspected and confirmed cases have been isolated and managed under strict medical supervision, minimizing any risk of further transmission,” said Tedros Abhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO.

Health Canada also states that the overall risk to the general population in Canada “remains low.” Because “transmission requires close, prolonged contact, person-to-person spread in Canada isn’t expected, even if an infected individual were to arrive in the country.”

Jackson Jacobs, a spokesperson for the province’s health minister, said they are in addition to the three people who were asked to isolate after potentially being exposed to the virus while travelling, and are considered “high-risk.”

They’re all directed to isolate for 45 days “out of an abundance of caution.”

That brings the total number of people who are being monitored by local public health units in the province to 10.

Another six are isolating in Alberta and British Columbia, and remain asymptomatic, according to provincial health officials. One person in Canada connected to the outbreak is no longer isolating in Quebec, after the province’s health ministry said they were deemed a low risk contact.

Someone is considered “low-risk” if they came into contact with one of the “high-risk” people.

In Ontario, those considered high-risk include a couple in Grey Bruce who was on the ship and a visitor to the Greater Toronto Area, in the Peel Region. They all shared a flight with a cruise passenger who later died of hantavirus.

Jacobs said Tuesday the three high-risk contacts in Ontario remained well and were showing no symptoms.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said passengers and crew members who were on the vessel, along with anyone identified as high-risk contacts from a flight with a confirmed case, should not travel.”The government of Canada is implementing temporary measures that will prevent any passenger and crew that have been aboard the MV Hondius since April 1, 2026, from boarding a flight to Canada,” the agency said in an update Tuesday.

3:37 Three people isolating in Ontario after Hantavirus exposure

The director of the World Health Organization said the risk of hantavirus to health on a global scale continues to be low.

The number of positive cases internationally has grown to 11, including three deaths. No additional fatalities have been reported since May 2, and all cases have been among the ship’s passengers or crew.

“At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak. But of course, the situation could change. And given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Public health officials and infectious disease physicians have stressed that Andes virus — the type of hantavirus that hit the ship and the only kind known to spread person-to-person — requires close and prolonged contact to spread and that it is not a pandemic threat.

Testing

Health experts said it’s not clear whether it’s useful to test people who may have been exposed to hantavirus but don’t have symptoms.

Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s provincial health officer, said public health officials around the world are discussing the issue as passengers from the ship have returned to their home countries.

She said tests for some viruses aren’t effective before patients develop symptoms and little is known about how well testing works in rare cases of the rodent-borne virus.

Henry said there are two types of blood tests for hantaviruses — one that checks for antibodies and a PCR test that detects pieces of the virus itself.

If anyone in Canada who may have been exposed to the virus develops symptoms, Henry said health officials are ready to test and treat them.

Alberta health officials said Tuesday their two travellers are self-isolating at home.

3:47 Canadians from hantavirus-stricken cruise ship isolating in B.C.

“If they display symptoms, testing will be conducted but, as noted, there have been zero symptoms to date,” said Tom McMillan, spokesperson for the Alberta Primary Health Ministry.

University of Saskatchewan hantavirus scientist Bryce Warner said health officials are in a “unique” situation because doctors wouldn’t normally have any reason to suspect the rare virus until a patient is showing signs of illness.

Warner, who works at the university’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, said a negative test in someone without symptoms wouldn’t necessarily mean they don’t have hantavirus.

“Because the incubation period can be several weeks, if you did a test in the first week and it was negative by PCR you can’t just say ‘OK, I’m negative.’ It could take another week or two or three, really, for that to come up as positive,” he said.

Isolation

Four Canadians arrived on Vancouver Island on Sunday and are self-isolating on a voluntary basis for at least 21 days and possibly up to six weeks.

Henry said she and the local health officer on Vancouver Island have legal tools to require people to isolate in appropriate facilities. But she said those powers won’t be used, unless people don’t comply with the request to self-isolate.

“So, it (forced isolation) is a last resort,” she said.

Stephen Hoption Cann, a clinical professor at the University of B.C.’s school of population and public health, said voluntary isolation is appropriate given the low chance of transmission.

“It’s not like the COVID virus,” he said. “It can be transmitted, but not easily transmitted, especially when a patient is not symptomatic.”

If, however, symptoms were to develop, the individuals could be transferred to an isolation unit, he said.

Henry said Sunday that the province has established protocols and facilities in the unlikely event that symptoms develop, including the B.C. Biocontainment Treatment Centre at Surrey Memorial Hospital, to safely assess and care for patients.

“I think we are striking the right balance,” Hoption Cann said, when asked about B.C.’s approach.

“There is a low risk of transmission from this virus. They don’t want to overact. It’s always a delicate balance. If you start (forced) quarantines, you can always have a lot of backlash from that.”

Hoption Cann said the COVID-19 pandemic showed that a lot of people were quite upset with the restrictive measures.

“You just want to maintain overall co-operation from the population, and demonstrate that you are doing the best you can, but not be too extreme under the current situation based on the science of what we know about the virus,” he said.