Dr. Isra Levy, Ottawa's medical officer of health, told reporters Friday another person in the city had died with the H1N1 virus. Levy said five people in Ottawa have died from swine flu-related illness since September.

Two more people have died from swine flu-related illness in the Ottawa region, health officials have reported.

Dr. Isra Levy, Ottawa's medical officer of health, told a news conference Friday afternoon that another person in the city had succumbed to the H1N1 virus, bringing the number of swine flu-related deaths in Ottawa since September to five.

Levy said the person had underlying health conditions and died at an Ottawa hospital earlier this week. A source at city hall later confirmed it was a 50-year-old man who died.

The H1N1 virus also claimed another life in west Quebec. The Outaouais health agency reported Friday that a 28-year-old man, also with underlying ailments, died from H1N1-related illness on Wednesday. It was the fifth H1N1-related death in the Outaouais region in west Quebec since September.

Despite the deaths, Dr. Levy said Ottawa's current H1N1 outbreak may have reached its peak.

"The degree of influenza in our community actually seems to be somewhat stable, if not even a little less than it's been in the last several weeks."

Because of that, Levy said the Centretown Community Health Centre will be ramping down its flu assessment services and likely won't offer them after Sunday. However, all other flu assessment clinics in the city will keep their doors open:

• Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, 221 Nelson St.
• Somerset West Community Health Centre, 55 Eccles St.
• Dempsey Community Centre, 1895 Russell Rd.
• Carlington Community Health Centre, 900 Merivale Rd.
• Pinecrest Queensway Community Health Centre, 1365 Richmond Rd.

Vaccine clinics could reopen next week

Dr. Levy expects Ottawa will get a new shipment of H1N1 vaccine by Tuesday or Wednesday and will reopen its vaccination clinics by the middle of next week, at the earliest.

Levy said the health agency doesn't have a clear plan on how it will disseminate the vaccine because it still doesn't know how many doses it will receive, nor how much of the vaccine will be adjuvanted or non-adjuvanted.

Still, Levy expects the province to announce that school-age children up to age 14 and seniors over the age of 65 will be the next priority groups for vaccination.

Swine flu vaccination clinics in Ottawa closed at the end of Thursday because of a shortage of vaccine.

By the end of Thursday, Ottawa Public Health said it had distributed almost 190,000 doses of the vaccine to priority groups. The vaccine inoculates against the strain of H1N1 influenza virus responsible for the current swine flu pandemic.