Health Minister Theresa Oswald and Dr. Joel Kettner, chief provincial public health officer, say that the H1N1 vaccine will most likely be available in doctors' offices in the near future.
As of Nov. 24, regional health authorities have administered around 323,000 doses of the H1N1 vaccine to Manitobans. Oswald says the province has received 172,000 adjuvant doses of the vaccine, bringing the total up to 551,100 doses of it, adjuvant and non-adjuvant, province-wide. She adds the province is expecting to receive 204,000 doses this week and is not expecting any further vaccine shortages at this time.
"We are continuing to be as nimble as we possibly can and responsive to our vaccine supply," she explains, claiming that the province is looking at making the vaccine available at doctors' offices shortly.
"We feel very confident about our vaccine supply and that will allow us to move away from the mass vaccination clinics we're going to let the public know when we're in a position to have as many doctors that want the vaccine to have it [at their offices]."
Oswald says there have been 703 additional lab confirmed cases of H1N1, bringing the total in the second wave of the influenza pandemic up to 1,246 since Oct. 6.
"We have a relatively large number of positive test results. We're analyzing exactly when these people had their symptoms begin within the last two weeks there has been continued evidence of the virus circulating in Manitoba and people have become symptomatic of it. Most do not require hospitalization and our intensive care unit numbers on a week to week basis have fallen in the last two weeks," Kettner explains. "It's clear that from some indications the amount of severe diseases appears to be lessening on a week to week basis but we have other indications that the virus is still circulating."
Oswald goes on to say that there have been 204 adverse reactions so far to the vaccine, most being insignificant such as redness at the injection site, coughing, headaches, etc. But Kettner says that eight of these reported cases have been considered serious. There has also been a report of a strain of seasonal influenza beginning in Canada and Oswald says that those who wish to have the seasonal flu vaccine will be able to.
