Hundreds of patients and families affected by multiple sclerosis held a rally Wednesday at the Manitoba legislature calling for officials to bring an experimental procedure to the province.
"Please work with us to bring CCSVI treatment to Canada," said Jennifer Reimer at the rally. Her husband has MS.
CCSVI stands for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, a term coined by Italian vascular doctor Paolo Zamboni.
He discovered some MS patients have blocked veins which prevented blood from draining properly from the brain and applied a treatment to respond to it.
Alison Dallas underwent the CCSVI treatment but had to travel from Manitoba to Poland for it.
"It's been about two weeks now and I'm just progressively getting better. My brain fog has deteriorated. My fatigue has gone away," said Dallas.
Theresa Oswald, the province's health minister, said she hopes CCSVI is the answer to MS but added Manitoba is waiting on feedback from medical experts about the procedure.
"We need to make sure nobody is in danger," said Oswald.
Rallies in support of CCSVI treatment were held across Canada on Wednesday with MS patients calling for governments to begin testing and treating for it immediately.
The MS Society of Canada joined in on the calls and is asking the federal government to provide $10 million for research into the CCSVI treatment.
- with a report from CTV's Jon Hendricks
