Provinces get less H1N1 vaccine next week
Last Updated: Friday, October 30, 2009 | 11:54 AM ET
CBC News
A registered nurse displays a sign as thousands of people wait in line for hours to receive their H1N1 flu vaccine at the North York Civic Centre in Toronto on Thursday. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press) Fewer doses of the H1N1 vaccine will be available to the provinces next week, federal authorities say.
But despite the decline from this week, chief public health officer Dr. David Butler-Jones says Canada still has more swine flu vaccine doses per capita than any other country.
This week, provinces across the country received two million doses. Next week, they will receive just 400,000 doses of adjuvanted and unadjuvanted vaccines, with the latter version specially made for pregnant women.
Chief public health officer Dr. David Butler-Jones says Canada still has more swine flu vaccine doses per capita than any other country. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press) The problem is the maker has a single production line but had to stop producing adjuvanted vaccines to make the unadjuvanted type. Adjuvants are used to boost effectiveness, but can have unwanted side-effects in some cases.
After the production line is back to making adjuvanted vaccines next week, federal officials say, distribution to provinces will be back up in the millions.
The news comes as long lines of people waiting for H1N1 shots grew across Canada on Thursday, with some clinics forced to shut down because of overwhelming demand.
Butler-Jones stressed there will be enough vaccines to go around and Canada is ahead of the game.
“Unlike virtually every other country in the world, by Christmas we should have enough vaccines for everybody that wants it in Canada,” Butler-Jones told CBC’s Power & Politics. “But it is not all available at once.”
Butler-Jones said every manufacturer around the world is being challenged to produce enough vaccine.
He said the government had hoped to receive three million doses a week, but so far the manufacturer has been able to provide only about two million per week — resulting in a total of six million doses by the end of this week.
“We do not have as much as we had hoped at this point, but right now in Canada there are more doses out there than any other country in the world per capita,” he said.
Opposition MPs criticized the Conservative government Thursday, saying delays in ordering and rolling out the vaccine have cost lives.
"I'd like to ask the minister, 'Does he not understand these delays have cost, and will cost, lives?" Liberal MP Bob Rae said in the House of Commons.
Industry Minister Tony Clement answered on behalf of the government: "We are acting to ensure the health and safety of Canadians is our No.1 priority."
Butler-Jones added that before April it was not known what the virus would be and health officials have worked as fast as they can.
"It is impossible to produce a vaccine faster than the vaccines have been produced and they are rolling off as quickly as is reasonable to ensure that we are confident about the safety and the effectiveness,” he said.
With files from The Canadian Press
