Health units in the Toronto area are currently only vaccinating those in certain priority groups, including pregnant women, children under the age of 13 and those with underlying health conditions. (CBC)

Health units across the Greater Toronto Area will soon make the swine flu vaccine available to anyone who wants it.

Health units in Toronto, Durham, York and Halton will offer the shots to everyone over six months of age starting Wednesday. Clinics in Peel region will make the vaccine, which targets the H1N1 influenza A virus that causes swine flu, available to everyone starting Thursday.

Dr. David McKeown, Toronto's chief medical officer of health, said "everyone is welcome" to the city's 10 clinics.

Health-care providers in Toronto have received more than 400,000 doses of the vaccine, the city's public health department said in a news release Tuesday.

Until now, clinics in the Toronto area had only been vaccinating people in certain priority groups, including pregnant women, children between the ages of six months and five years and those under 65 with underlying health conditions.

The decision to expand the vaccination program to include the general public comes despite ambiguity from the province's chief medical officer of health on when the vaccine will be made available to everyone province-wide.

Last Friday, Dr. Arlene King said Ontario will expand the vaccination program. People in the following groups began receiving the vaccine this week:

• Children under the age of 13.
• People aged 65 years or older with underlying health conditions.
• Adults aged 65 years or older who live in long-term care homes.
• First responders, including firefighters and police officers.
• Frontline workers at correctional facilities and youth facility workers.
• Between 100 and 120 members of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

But she made no indication when everyone else would be offered the shot, saying only the rollout of the vaccine was being determined on an ongoing basis as the province learns how many doses they will be receiving.

Sporadic expansion of flu shot program

Meanwhile, a number of smaller cities in Ontario have already made the shots available to the general public.

The health units for Niagara, Hamilton, Kingston, Haldimand-Norfolk, Algoma and the Porcupine Health Unit in Timmins were among those that were offering the flu shot to anyone who wanted it.

Public health units in Simcoe Muskoka, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph and Oxford County began making the flu shot available to the general public starting Tuesday.

"Each health unit is in a different stage of vaccine delivery and rollout," Ontario Ministry of Health spokesman David Jensen said in an email to The Canadian Press.

"Geography, population size and access to primary care all vary from health unit to health unit, and these all play a part in the delivery of the vaccine."

There have been 71 deaths related to lab-confirmed H1N1 in Ontario since April. As of Tuesday, there were 216 people in the hospital with swine flu.

With files from The Canadian Press