Ontario: New shipment of H1N1 vaccine has arrived
November 9, 2009
Theresa Boyle
Ontario has received a shipment of 777,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine today, but has to sit on half of it until it gets approval for release from Ottawa, says health ministry spokesperson David Jensen.
The shipment includes 395,000 doses of adjuvanted vaccine and 375,000 of the unadjuvanted shot. It's the latter category that requires special approval before release. Unadjuvanted vaccine is recommended for use by pregnant woman. Until now, Canada has been using unadjuvanted vaccine produced in Austrailia. The new shipment of unadjuvanted vaccine is Canadian made at the the GlaxoSmithKline plant in Quebec. Because of drug regulations, Ottawa must sign off on it before it can be used.
The province's 36 public health units, some of which have run out of vaccine can soon restock.
"After receiving the shipment today, we will repackage the vaccine on Tuesday and ship the 395,000 doses of adjuvanted vaccine out to the public health units on Wednesday," Jensen said.
thestar.com
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