Provinces ration smaller flu vaccine supply

Canadians who aren't in a high-risk group for complications from H1N1 shouldn't line up for vaccine, provincial health officialssaid Friday,as they planned foraslowdown in delivery of the doses next week.

Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. DavidButler-Jones, told a news conference in Ottawa thatjust over 400,000 doses of thevaccine will flow from manufacturer by the end of next week, down from roughly two million doses that were sentin each of the past three weeks.

The six million doses sent so far are enough for the highest-risk groups, Butler-Jones said.

Also, 225,000doses of the vaccine intended specifically for pregnant women will be available for provinces and territories to administer next week, for a total of 625,000 doses of vaccine, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Meanwhile, provincial health officials wereconsidering howto relieve the long lineups for H1N1 vaccines at mass immunization clinics across Canada.

Flu activity is increasing across parts of Canada, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said, adding she hasbeen saddened byrecent deaths.

"Our rates of influenza-like illness due to H1N1 are up dramatically as a result of the spread of infection over the last week or two," Ontario's chief medical officer, Dr. Arlene King, saidFriday.

H1N1 vaccinations will only be given to Ontarians in priority groups next week, and the province will take a stronger line against people who don't fall into these groups, King told a news conference.

"If you are not in a priority group please be patient," King said."We will not be immunizing people who do not fall under the six priority groups. Wait to get your vaccine once those who will benefit most have received it."

The priority groups are:

• Pregnant women.
• Children from six months to five years of age.
• People who live with children under six months old.
• People under 65 with underlying medical conditions.
• Immuno-compromised people and those caring for them.
• People living in remote and isolated communities.

Health officials in other provinces are taking the same approach, she said.

These provinces include Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Quebec.

On the other hand, Alberta's top health officials say they won't make any immediate changes to the way the province is rolling out swine flu vaccinations. The province has requested that healthy Albertans wait for the shot.

Health officials in Newfoundland and Labrador, where vaccine supply is also an issue,were reporting a rapid increasein the number of people with swine flu, including the first confirmed case in Labrador.

Waited more than 5 hours

"We certainly anticipate running out before the weekend is out," said Dr. David Allison,medical officer of health in St. John's.

At a vaccine clinic in St. John's, children sang and played games as parents tried to kill time waiting in line.

"I wanted to make sure that my kids get the vaccination," said Angela Vallis, who waited for more than five hours. Vallis said she feared the vaccine would run out, and that a riot might break out.

The vaccine being administered, called Arepranix H1N1, targets the strain of H1N1 influenza A virus responsible for the current swine flu pandemic.

In New Brunswick, five schools in the St. George area were closed Friday because of swine flu, and some won't reopen until next Wednesday.

Vaccine shortages caused clinics in Moncton and the surrounding area to be cancelled for Friday, including those for health-care workers. Clinics scheduled for the weekend and next week are expected to go ahead.

On Thursday, federal and provincial health officials said fewer doses of H1N1 vaccine are expected next week because the vaccine manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline,has a single production line. The company had to stop producing adjuvanted vaccines to make thenon-adjuvant type for pregnant women.

Adjuvants are used to boost immune response so that less of the active ingredient can be used, thus stretching supplies.

'Unprecedented' demand

Demand for the H1N1 vaccine has been "unprecedented" in Ontario, which has offered free seasonal flu shots for everyone six months of age or oldersince 2000. The province planned its H1N1 vaccination clinics in part based on demand for seasonal flu shots, King said. Less than 50 per cent of Ontario residents get seasonal flu shots.

Ontario is considering eventuallyimmunizing children at school and working people at work, as is sometimes done with seasonal shots,but for now, the focus remains on priority groups.

The H1N1 vaccine is being divided into smaller doses so that family doctors can administer it directlyto their patients, thereby relieving the long lineups at mass immunization clinics in Ontario.

"We are repackaging as quickly as possible to get it out to the family physicians who want to deliver it," King said.

Meanwhile, 105,000 doses have been set aside for the Canadian Forces, which is running its own clinics in Canada and abroad. The vaccine started to roll out to some deployed troops, and the plan isto start giving the shots totroops in the non-priority groups beginning on Nov. 2.

Alberta, which is well into the second wave of the pandemic, released updated figures on Friday. Since Wednesday, Alberta has had another swine flu death, bringing the province's toll to 13 since the spring, when the pandemic began. The number of swine-flu-related hospitalizations in Alberta is 35.

As of Oct. 24, 92 deaths from swine flu have been reported since the spring, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Canada's second wave of swine flu started on the West Coast. In British Columbia, health officials are also grappling with shortages of the H1N1 vaccine.

B.C. will receive 500,000 fewer doses than it expected to have on hand by Nov. 6, provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said Thursday.