Both the federal health minister and Canada’s chief public health officer are on the defensive over government action in combating the H1N1 flu.
Facing growing public anger over the rollout of flu vaccine, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said the immunization campaign was planned for early November but ministry staff worked around the clock to get authorization almost two weeks early.
Aglukkaq said they could have made a choice to distribute the vaccine in December when everything was ready, but instead decided to dole out the vaccine to those who most needed it.
Both politicians and the public are venting as thousands line up for hours at clinics that are already running short on supplies, but Dr. David Butler-Jones brushed off the criticism.
The federal public health officer said the reality is that just a week into the campaign 10 to 20 per cent of the people in many communities have been vaccinated — more than any other country in the world.
Butler-Jones also assured Canadians that while vaccine supplier GlaxoSmithKline has exported bulk doses of the vaccine out of the country, it won’t impact how long they wait to be immunized.
“There has been bulk vaccine that we’re not able to actually fill here so that has been exported,” he said. “But all of the vaccine that we can fill in Canada has stayed and will stay in Canada until our immunization is complete.”
Aglukkaq also disputed a federal auditor general’s report critical of the federal pandemic response, saying a plan was created in 2006 after the SARS outbreak.