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Ontario is suspending the rollout of its H1N1 flu shots to the general public next week, amid a shortage of the vaccine.

Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said the province will receive only 170,000 doses and 86,800 doses of the unadjuvented vaccine for pregnant women from the federal government next week — a fraction of the 722,000 doses received in prior weeks.

For this reason, she said only those at higher risk of developing complications from the virus will be vaccinated next week.

"We will not be immunizing people who do not fall under the priority groups," Dr. King said at a news conference on Friday.

Dr. King says people waiting in queue will be questioned about why they are there to weed out members of the general public who are jumping in line.

She added that in a few weeks the province will have enough vaccine to immunize everyone who wants and needs it.

“If you are not in a priority group please be patient and respect the sequencing," she said.

“Obviously, it would be desirable to continue to have the supply we had, but I think the strategy we agreed on is the best way right now to mitigate serious illness and death as result of infection of H1N1.”

“For next week we will receive a lower supply of the vaccine than had been originally anticipated due to reduced production by the vaccine’s supplier,” she said.

“For this reason we will focus our immunization efforts exclusively on the priority groups, those people who are most vulnerable to serious outcomes from this flu and those around them."

The vaccine is being shipped to the provinces in stages as it is manufactured, she said, adding that the province never expected to receive its allotment all at once.

Dr. King says the roll-out of the vaccine is still weeks ahead of the original schedule.

Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews — who abruptly left the Liberal party’s annual general meeting in Windsor, Ont., today — is flying back to Toronto to speak with Dr. King about how the province will deal with the shortage.

Dr. King says Ontario’s allotment is expected to increase again “within several weeks,” adding that she believed everyone who wants to be immunized in the province can expect to receive the vaccine by Christmas.

Clinics are being limited to priority groups only all across Canada, as all provinces deal with the dwindling supply issue, Dr. King told a news conference in Toronto today.

Canada’s top health officer has said that delivery of the H1N1 vaccine to the provinces will slow a bit over the next couple of weeks because the manufacturer was asked to make special batches of the product for pregnant women.

Dr. David Butler-Jones said the slowdown would likely require some to scale back their vaccination efforts.

Ms. Matthews says the matter is urgent.

“We just received word that we are going to be getting less than 20 per cent of what we expected to get, so we are now revising our strategy.”

“We are committed to getting the vaccine out to those who need it the most,” she said.

Health units across the province have been forced to turn away some high priority group members after higher than anticipated turnouts.