H1N1 vaccines open to all Simcoe Muskoka residents
Posted By The Barrie Examiner
Posted 2 months ago
SIMCOE MUSKOKA – The health unit will be making the H1N1 vaccine available to anyone over the age of six months, beginning Tuesday.
“We are confident we now have the resources to be able to offer this vaccine to the entire population,” said Simcoe Muskoka Medical Officer of Health Dr. Charles Gardner. “After just two weeks we’ve been able to immunize about 20,000 people in the high priority populations at public clinics and many thousands more through doctors’ offices and institutions, so it is now time to move forward.”
The health unit will also be asking partners who are delivering the vaccine, such as physicians, hospitals and long term care homes, to also make the vaccine available to all those over six months of age.
Locally, illness from the H1N1 flu has risen dramatically in recent weeks and is expected to continue to spread for some time to come. This makes immunizing as many people as quickly as possible a critical tool in checking the spread of illness.
“The vaccine, coupled with good personal hygiene and other infection control measures, could reduce the amount of illness from H1N1 in the community,” Dr. Gardner said.
To date the health unit has received over 107,000 doses of adjuvanted and unadjuvanted H1N1 vaccine available to the public. Of those, approximately 15,000 doses remain on hand for use at clinics and for distribution to other partners this week. Further shipments of up to 32,000 doses could be arriving this week.
Attendance at the public vaccine clinics has been sparse in recent days. The staffing at each clinic will be ample to keep up with demand when the general public begins to arrive for the vaccine.
In addition to the adjuvanted vaccine, the clinics will have unadjuvanted vaccine available for pregnant women.
Health unit vaccine clinics are operating at six locations throughout Simcoe and Muskoka, five days a week.
For a full schedule of clinics, visit the health unit’s website at www.simcoemuskokahealth.org, or call Your Health Connection at 721-7520 or 1-877-721-7520, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
