H1N1 vaccine clinics to offer seasonal flu shots
Last Updated: Thursday, November 26, 2009 | 3:56 PM MT
CBC News
A nurse at a Calgary clinic prepares a syringe of H1N1 vaccine for a patient on Oct. 26. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press) Seasonal flu shots will be offered along with H1N1 flu shots at mass vaccine clinics starting Monday, Alberta health officials said Thursday.
"That's the plan, is to offer both, again, with the proviso that if things really get busy and lineups get bad, we might just have to defer the seasonal [shot] but we don't anticipate to have to do that given what we're seeing with the numbers coming through our clinics," said Dr. Gerry Predy, the senior medical officer of health for Alberta Health Services.
The province will also start distributing vaccine to the physicians who asked for it starting next week, Predy said.
Pharmacists will also get access to vaccine but talks are still underway to determine when that will happen.
So far, 850,000 Albertans have been vaccinated, about 50,000 each day.
Even though incidences of H1N1 flu has peaked in Alberta, the chief medical officer of health, Dr. André Corriveau, said people should still get vaccinated if they haven't done so already.
The clinics are scheduled to keep running until Christmas.
After rolling out the vaccine to a widening number of high-risk groups since Nov. 5, Alberta opened up H1N1 clinics to the general public on Monday.
The total number of deaths due to H1N1 flu sits at 54. The two latest deaths are two people in Edmonton — one a woman between 45 to 64, the other a man between 30 and 44. Both had chronic health conditions.
