Vaccine clinics cancelled
Published Tuesday November 3rd, 2009
Demand | Province says shipment on the way
New Brunswick's dwindling supply of H1N1 vaccine is making it tough for the province to schedule vaccination clinics.
A number of clinics scheduled in the Moncton and Saint John areas have been cancelled, and so has a public clinic planned for Nackawic this evening.
Health officials say a clinic targeting school-aged children will happen today in Nackawic, but the public program will be rescheduled for a later date as more vaccine becomes available.
Dr. Eilish Cleary, chief medical officer of health, said similar situations are happening in every Canadian province, as the vaccine's manufacturer - GlaxoSmithKline - struggles to keep up with the growing demand.
She said New Brunswick will receive a reduced supply in the next few days.
"Some of our adjuvanted product is due to arrive on Wednesday, or perhaps early Thursday. It is approximately a quarter of what we were expecting," she said Monday.
"We will be working very hard to try and make sure the priority groups are vaccinated. It just means that some people will have to wait a little bit longer to get their vaccine. We will have enough vaccine for everybody and it's important that we vaccinate the priority groups first."
New Brunswick received a shipment of more than 4,000 doses of the unadjuvanted H1N1 vaccine - an alternate version that contains no immune system-boosting additive - that will be used to protect pregnant women from the pandemic flu.
Cleary said units of the unadjuvanted vaccine will soon be delivered to the regional health authorities for upcoming clinics.
"This week there will be clinics available for all pregnant women towards the end of the week," she said.
"We are encouraging all pregnant women now to access vaccine."
She said the province's supply has been depleted by a successful vaccination program so far, but it's going to be important that residents check the government's flu website, or call the toll-free hotline, before heading out the door to the clinic.
"With the news of this even more reduced amount than we were expecting, (the regional health authorities) are having to revisit their plans," she said.
"We're asking people to be patient, check the website (and toll-free hotline) regularly, because if a clinic was advertised there yesterday, it may have to be changed based on the availability of product."
Cleary said healthy citizens will have to wait a few more weeks before they'll have an opportunity to access the vaccine, but that isn't cause for panic.
She said that even though the pandemic flu is making the rounds in New Brunswick, most cases have been relatively minor so far.
"There is a fair amount of disease activity around," she said.
"Fortunately, most cases are mild, although not unexpectedly, we are seeing some hospitalized cases. We had two people hospitalized last week and I had a report (Monday) morning of another two people that are hospitalized. We have had no deaths from H1N1, fortunately."
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Comments (29)
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For everyone, since the news won't tell you:
Clinics for the Genreal Public will begin the end of November and early December. Please allow for prioity priority people first.
During the 60 days you start out on a sliding scale increasing resistance each day.
News Flash: In 60 days the pandemic will have passed making this crap unnecessary. Now with delays, chances are the pandemic will have passed before you get the jab.
Listening to CBC the government has claimed that the pandemic is widespread in New Brunswick.
Funny how I do not know a single person who has it.
BAHHAHAH BAHAHAHAH
How can a process like this possibly be nothing but a disaster if people start flooding to hospitals with the H1N1 flu. All we wanted, and they should have set up, is a place/process where you can get symptoms quickly assessed to see if there is something to be really concerned about.