’Flu shot numbers down slightly here

After holding public ’flu shot clinics for the past month, the Northwestern Health Unit is seeing slightly fewer people coming out to be immunized this year.
Cindy McKinnon, the public health nurse heading up this year’s ’flu shot campaign, said Thursday the health unit had administered about 7,500 doses as of Dec. 1.
“Most of the large community clinics have happened, and as far as numbers—you have to take into consideration we started it a month earlier last year—but it seems to be the numbers are down a little bit from last year at this point,” she noted.
“We’ll see as we continue through the holidays,” she added. “Reports are still coming in and people are still being immunized.”
But McKinnon, who recently attended the Canadian national immunization conference in Winnipeg, said this dip in numbers isn’t a regional phenomenon.
“Across the province it looks like we’re going to be down a little bit,” she noted. “I spoke to a lot of my colleagues from throughout Ontario and it’s a similar story.
“I attribute that to the late start [of the clinics],” she said, adding the fluctuating winter weather may have some people not thinking it to be ’flu season quite yet.
“It all factors in, and what we see in this district tends to be the way it is across the board,” said McKinnon. “Thunder Bay is seeing the same thing.”
Besides administering the ’flu vaccine at appointment-only and public clinics, the health unit also is responsible for acting as a central vaccine depot for the Rainy River and Kenora districts, distributing it to hospitals, long-term care centres, correctional facilities, and clinics.
McKinnon noted the health unit has distributed about 30,000 doses so far this season.
Last year, the health unit distributed 34,000 doses and administered about 12,000 in the Kenora/Rainy River districts.
The three viral strains the vaccine contains this year are A/New Caledonia, A/Wisconsin, and B/Malaysia.
As in past years, the health unit is targeting three groups of people with its ’flu shot campaign.
Parents and guardians of healthy children over the age of six months are encouraged to make an appointment and bring them for a shot at their local health unit office, said McKinnon.
They’ll be administered at the health unit office here on Dec. 19-21 and Dec. 27, and in Emo on Dec. 19.
The health unit then will continue to take appointments to give ’flu shots in the new year.
Like all children under nine years of age who have not received the ’flu vaccine in previous years, they will require two doses—with an interval of four weeks between shots.
In addition, people age 65 and over, as well as those under 65 with chronic medical problems, should be immunized as a priority. Those with medical problems are at higher risk of developing serious complications of influenza.
Health-care providers and volunteers in health-care institutions are most likely to transmit the virus to the high-risk population, so they also are considered to be a priority group for influenza immunizations.
The health unit is responsible for keeping track of coverage rates for staff at hospitals, as well as staff and residents at long-term care facilities.
All people over six months of age are eligible to receive the publicly-funded ’flu shot. Because ’flu viruses mutate each year, everyone is encouraged to get one on an annual basis, said McKinnon.
The only exceptions are people who’ve had an anaphylactic reaction to eggs or one of the other components in the vaccine, an adverse reaction to a previous ’flu shot, or who’ve been advised by their physicians to avoid getting one.
For more information or to book an appointment for a ’flu shot at the health unit’s office here, call 274-9827. People also can visit www.nwhu.on.ca
The Fort Frances Clinic, Gizhewaadiziwin Health Access Centre, and Dr. C.M. Moorhouse also have been holding ’flu shot clinics in recent weeks.