Toronto public health officials say they expect school age children to be next in line for the H1N1 vaccination. (Canadian Press)

Toronto public health officials say they're just waiting for word from the province, but they're ready to start immunizing school age children for the H1N1 virus.

"Our clinics will be ready to immunize children as soon as the province makes the announcement," Dr. David McKeown said Thursday.

An announcement from the province is expected on Friday.

"We're waiting to hear from the province how the next phase of the immunization program is going to roll out, but we anticipate that it will extend to some extent to the school age population," said McKeown, the city's chief medical officer of health.

"In Toronto, we've looked carefully at the best way to get vaccine to children of school age," McKeown told a news conference. "And we're going to be … asking parents to go either to their own physicians — because we've sent a large volume of vaccine out to family physicians — or to come to one of our clinics."

Toronto is currently running 10 large clinics in the city. Those clinics have been operating seven days a week vaccinating people in high-risk groups.

Shots at schools option rejected

In the case of schoolchildren, McKeown said a combination of doctors' offices and clinics is the best way to immunize such a large group efficiently and quickly.

The public health department has looked at giving the shots at schools, but decided that the logistics of going to more than 1,000 schools in the city didn't make sense. Instead, McKeown said, the decision was taken to vaccinate children at clinics, or medical offices.

"More important, we want to make sure that we can immunize children safely," he said. To do that health officials need to talk to parents, said McKeown.

Toronto public health also announced that it is opening a flu assessment clinic Thursday at the Scarborough Hospital, 3050 Lawrence Ave. E., to help deal with the crush of patients concerned about H1N1.

The city will open more flu assessment centres over the course of the coming week:

• South East Toronto Family Health Team, 840 Coxwell Ave., Suite 105. (Opening Monday).
• York Community Services, 1651 Keele St., Main Floor. (Opening Monday).
• Humber River Regional Hospital, Finch Professional Building, 2115 Finch Ave. W., Main Floor. (Opening Tuesday).
• Sherbourne Health Centre, 333 Sherbourne St. (Opening Wednesday).