Canada’s chief public health officer says hospitalizations, intensive-care unit admissions and deaths from swine flu are three times higher this week than last.
Dr. David Butler-Jones says the H1N1 virus is surging across the country, with the western provinces, the territories and Newfoundland and Labrador hit particularly hard.
“We expect to hear of more illness and deaths in the coming weeks as we go further into the second wave,” Butler-Jones said Thursday.
Butler-Jones says overall flu activity is still below its peak during the virus’s first wave in June, but he expects to surpass that spring high point within a few weeks.
“We’re now, as of last week, we were below the peak weeks of June,” he said.
“Now we’re catching up. So we’re not quite there yet, but over the next few weeks we’re going to see perhaps what we saw in June.
“By then, I’m hoping that we’ll have sufficient people immunized that we can slow this down.”
Anyone who thinks the virus is on the wane should think again, he added.
“Anybody that thinks that we’ve seen anything but the beginning of this, I think it would be lovely, but it’s a bit of wishful thinking,” Butler-Jones said. “This will continue to increase.”
Millions of Canadians have received the swine-flu shot since Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq approved the vaccine late last month.
But long lineups clogged overcrowded clinics already coping with a temporary vaccine shortage, which sparked confusion and frustration among many Canadians.
Delivery of the H1N1 vaccine slowed recently after drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline was asked to make special batches of the product for pregnant women.
The changeover from making the adjuvanted version of the vaccine — which contains a booster compound — to making special unadjuvanted batches for pregnant women apparently slowed production of the vaccine more than GlaxoSmithKline had expected.
Alberta ran out of the vaccine and had to temporarily close clinics this week, while other provinces warned of dwindling supplies.
The surge of flu-stricken patients forced the hospital in Sudbury, Ont., to cancel elective surgeries, which some other hospitals from Vancouver to Montreal are also doing.
Health officials have appealed to lower-risk Canadians to wait a little longer for the vaccine, at least until those who are most vulnerable get their shots.
The Public Health Agency of Canada reports that, as of Nov. 3, swine flu had killed 101 people. More than 1,700 people have been hospitalized since the virus appeared in April.
By comparison, the agency’s website says the common flu sends about 20,000 Canadians to hospital each year. Between 4,000 and 8,000 Canadians die of influenza and its complications annually, depending on the severity of the season.