A heatlh worker prepares an injection during H1N1 flu innoculations.SAUL LOEB/AFP / Getty Images
Readers: Please note this story was published October 22.
With Health Canada's stamp of approval on the H1N1 vaccine, provinces and territories have started releasing their vaccination clinic plans for what is going to be the country's largest immunization campaign. Please check your local health authority for more specific details on times and locations.
New Brunswick
Public health officials expect to start administering the swine flu vaccine today to the vaccinators and staff responsible for rolling out the program. Priority groups, which include First Nation communities, school-age children and health-care workers, will be able to access it starting Monday. The province currently has 83,000 doses, and more are expected to come in over the next month. The vaccine will be offered to all in the province in the weeks to come.
Nova Scotia
There are 1.4 million doses of the vaccine on order and needles start going into arms next week, with the priority on high-risk groups such as people under the age of 65 with chronic conditions, health-care workers and children six months to less than five years of age. Pregnant women are also a high-priority group across Canada, but many doctors recommend they wait a few more weeks for a version of the vaccine that has no adjuvants. Adjuvants are compounds to boost the immune system's response.
Prince Edward Island
Doses of the H1N1 vaccine will be available starting next week. Aboriginals, health-care workers, people with chronic conditions under 65 and children six months old up to the age of school entry are among those considered a priority. Mass public clinics are scheduled to begin Nov. 16.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Mass immunization clinics will start offering the vaccine Monday to health care workers before moving on to other priority groups Nov. 2. At the front of the line should be anyone under 65 with chronic health issues, pregnant women, and children aged six months to five years old.
Ontario
The province already has 722,000 doses of vaccine, which will be offered starting Monday to certain groups that are more vulnerable to contracting swine flu: adults under the age of 65 with chronic conditions, health-care workers, caregivers for high-risk groups, people living in remote and isolated communities, pregnant women and healthy children six months to five years of age.
Manitoba
The government says that as of Monday, clinics will be set up in targeted areas offering free vaccinations to those first on the priority list: preschoolers, aboriginals, people with chronic medical conditions, health-care workers, pregnant women and others who are deemed most vulnerable. Manitoba expects to have 134,000 vaccine doses the week of Oct. 26, and subsequent deliveries of vaccine will continue weekly. The province will also fly in teams of health professionals to remote northern reserves that were hit hard by the flu's first wave last spring. Dozens of people from the Island Lake region were hospitalized, even though the area has just 10,000 residents.
Quebec
In the province where an elderly woman was the first casualty of the so-called second wave, vaccination is set to get under way on Monday. Quebec is spending $115-million to administer a total of 11.5 million doses, and distribution has already begun.
Alberta
Expects to have 400,000 doses on hand by Monday, and it will begin its inoculation program then, health officials said. The province is urging those in the high-risk groups to seek the shot as soon as possible, but won't be screening recipients. "We will vaccinate whoever shows up. But we are encouraging people who are the highest risk to come forward first," Dr. Gerry Predy, Alberta's senior medical officer of health, said in a news conference Wednesday.
British Columbia
Gets its clinics under way next week for women more than 20 weeks pregnant, people under 65 who have chronic health conditions, and people in remote and rural communities. The province currently has 230,000 doses of vaccine on hand. The program will expand to children and infants and health-care providers in the second week, while everyone else can get in line the following week.
Northwest Territories
Begins offering the vaccine to everyone on Monday. The territory has more than 30,000 doses, and it expects to receive more. Health officials have also set up four action teams, consisting of 18 nurses and seven logisticians, who will help communities vaccinate their populations.
Nunavut
Orientation started Wednesday and the territory will start immunizing its population on Nov. 1. Through mass community clinics, everyone will be offered the vaccine at the same time. The territory has enough vaccine ordered for 75 per cent of its population.
With files from Canadian Press