Canadian health reporter Helen Branswell dead at 69, remembered as 'pretty kickass' journalist | CBC News

Renowned Quebec-born Branswell known for coverage of public health threats from COVID-19 to Ebola

Helen Branswell, a journalist celebrated for her decades of coverage of public health and infectious diseases, has died at the age of 69.

Her sister, Brenda Branswell, confirmed to the outlet she died of complications from cancer. She had moved back to Canada last year, after a decade in Boston, to be closer to family, STAT reported.

Branswell's fellow journalists, members of the medical community and some of the world's top health officials are mourning the loss of a revered reporter.

"Throughout her career, Helen demonstrated an unwavering commitment to evidence, science and truth, helping the public understand some of the most complex and consequential health challenges of our time," he wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

Former CBC News journalist Kelly Crowe recalled how Branswell was "always conscious of her duty to inform the public without alarming them."

It was at the latter news company where "she got hooked on infectious disease reporting covering the 2003 SARS-1 outbreak in Toronto," according to her biography on STAT's website.

She wrote 161 stories that year, beginning on Jan. 4, 2020, when she reported on a mystery pneumonia outbreak in China that could be the result of "a new virus, and perhaps even a new coronavirus."

As recently as Monday, Branswell was updating her colleagues in a Slack channel from her hospital bed with data about maternal RSV vaccine uptake, STAT reported.

She explained in 2022, when Carleton University awarded Branswell an honorary doctorate in recognition of her career and "stellar coverage" of the pandemic, that she didn't really know what she wanted to do with her life after she graduated from St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B., with a bachelor of arts in English literature.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic management, thanked Branswell on social media for her "extraordinary reporting, rigor and humanity."

Branswell could be counted on for her "brilliant, ethical, evidence-based" journalism, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Peter Jay Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.