The leader of the Opposition in Manitoba has accused the NDP premier of a lack of leadership during the H1N1 vaccination program.

Hugh McFadyen, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, said Monday that provincial health officials should have enforced a strict screening program for people attending the vaccination clinics.

Instead, Manitoba is facing a shortage of the vaccine and clinics could be temporarily closed or scaled back.

The NDP may not be able to control how many doses of vaccine the province gets, but it can control how it is distributed, McFadyen said, adding the government has done a poor job of that.

He demanded that Premier Greg Selinger explain why the province waited until this week to enforce screening when health officials knew late last week that people not on the priority list were jumping the queue.

In a written statement, Selinger defended his minister of health, saying the province was only told last Thursday that it would be getting a lot fewer doses of the vaccine.

Selinger said that all along, there has been a clear ad campaign delivering the message that only high-risk Manitobans should be vaccinated in the first round of shots.

Vaccine supplies drastically reduced

Because of the anticipated high demand for the vaccine, the government announced prior to clinics opening last week a list of people at highest risk for serious illness and asked that they get vaccinated first.

The response by the public to the vaccination has been so strong, as in most provinces across the country, supplies are running out. Although the provinces are getting more supplies, the amounts have been drastically reduced.

Manitoba Health Minister Theresa Oswald told CBC News on Friday the province was supposed to receive 72,000 doses this week, but that had been reduced to 15,500.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) responded by announcing it was narrowing its priority lists for Monday and would better screen people at its 12 clinics in the city, turning away those that don't fall into the priority categories.

Until now, the WRHA had urged people to abide by the list of 10 priority categories set by the province.

But no one at the clinics screened individuals.

The health region's priority list has now been reduced to four categories:

• Children aged six months to five years old.
• Anyone of aboriginal ancestry, including First Nations, Métis or Inuit.
• People under age 55 who have a severe chronic medical condition or another risk condition.
• Pregnant women.

The health region said those groups will likely exhaust its supply of vaccine by the end of Monday. If not, the clinics will stay open only as long as current supplies last.

The province is still expecting to receive batches of the vaccine throughout the next few weeks but the amount it will get has yet to be determined.

Even so, health officials are still promising that everyone who wants the vaccine will eventually be able to get it.