Consent forms will be sent out to parents as early as today, the Saskatchewan Health Ministry says. (CBC)Saskatchewan's H1N1 swine flu vaccination program will expand to schoolchildren from kindergarten to Grade 6 this week, the Health Ministry says.
The mass vaccination program began last week with shots for health-care workers.
This week, the program expanded to women at least 20 weeks pregnant, women who have recently given birth, and children over six months but under five years old.
The province wants all people in the province to be able to get the shots.
Late last week, the future of the vaccination rollout was put in question when the province learned it would only be receiving a fraction of the vaccine it was expecting in its next shipment.
But on Tuesday, Saskatchewan's chief medical health officer, Moira McKinnon, said there's enough to continue vaccinating "high risk" people, so it will proceed with younger school children this week.
The vaccine for schoolchildren will be delivered in schools and clinics.
Schools will be sending home consent forms for parents to sign before children can receive the vaccine. Some of the forms will go out as soon as Tuesday, the province said.
Approximately 172,000 doses of the vaccine have been distributed to health regions to date, the Health Ministry said.
