Seniors and kids to get H1N1 shot on Monday
November 14, 2009
Theresa Boyle
HEALTH REPORTER
With Ontario now seeing about twice the amount of flu activity than it has in past years, elementary students and seniors with health problems can start getting the H1N1 shot on Monday.
"Our rates of influenza-like illness right now are higher ... than we have seen in any flu season on which we have been doing any monitoring," Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Arlene King, said Friday. "And the highest burden of illness is in the young."
Currently 135 of 1,000 patient visits to doctors are for flu-like illness, compared to an average 70 to 75 of 1,000 visits going back to the year 2000 during flu season. The vast majority of lab-confirmed cases of flu have been the H1N1 strain.
King made a plea to parents of children 13 and younger to get their shots because they are "highly susceptible to the virus." People under the age of 20 have accounted for almost half of all hospitalized cases of H1N1 in the province.
The priority list has also been opened to those 65 and over with underlying health conditions. It's estimated that 2.4 million of the 12 million people living in Ontario have been inoculated.
There is still no firm date on when healthy adults can get the vaccine.
Meanwhile, Health Canada has approved the Canadian version of the vaccine without adjuvant.
Health Canada will make all 1.8 million doses of the adjuvant-free vaccine available to both pregnant women and healthy people between the ages of 10 and 64.
With files from Joanna Smith
Toronto Star
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