Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:11:3
AHN Staff
Ottawa, Ontario (AHN) - Former Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Richard Schabas criticized Ottawa's flu vaccine production priority system. Since almost all the flu cases diagnosed across Canada are the Influenza A (H1N1) variety, Schabas contends the federal government should have stopped production of seasonal flu shots and concentrated instead on the swine flu vaccine manufacturing.
As a result, he said, Canada has excess seasonal flu shots, but lacks H1N1 vaccine. As of Oct. 31, of the 7,970 specimens examined positive for flu, 99.7 percent were H1N1.
More cases are being diagnosed, while even remote Canadian provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador registered an increase in H1N1 deaths. St. Johns registered its third swine flu death. The fatality was 63-year old woman with multiple underlying medical conditions. She is Newfoundland's third H1N1 death.
However, University of Ottawa's Emerging Pathogens Research Center Executive Director Earl Brown defended the federal government's action since it was not clear in summer - when production of the seasonal flu vaccine started - that there would be a second, but stronger strain of H1N1.
Meanwhile, in the resulting confusion as Canadians scramble for H1N1 shots, 11 children in Ontario were administered higher doses of the swine flu vaccine by a nurse at the Indell Lane clinic Monday afternoon. The recommended dose is 0.25 ml, but the 11 children - whose parents were informed of the error Thursday - were given 0.5 ml instead.
The erring nurse has been given a retraining, while one of the children who got the double dose developed a sore throat, runny nose and diarrhea, although a Peel Region medical officer said there is no significant health effect on children given a double dose of the adjuvanted vaccine.
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