Vaccine delay may have led to flu deaths: Swann

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Vaccine delay may have led to flu deaths: Swann

2 hours, 50 minutes ago

CALGARY (CBC) - Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann is standing by recent comments he made about how the rollout of the province's H1N1 vaccination program may have created delays in getting the vaccine to high-risk people, resulting in deaths.

"I'm saying this may have contributed to increased death rate and hospitalization rate in this province and there's a long tradition of ministerial responsibility," Swann said Monday.

As of Monday, Alberta has reported 47 deaths and 1,042 hospital admissions linked to swine flu since the start of the outbreak in April.

Swann is asking for numbers comparing death rates for high-risk people who received the vaccine and for those who didn't.

Unlike other provinces, Alberta offered the vaccine to the general public when it launched its vaccination program on Oct. 26.

High demand created lineups as long as four hours at some clinics, prompting criticism that high-risk groups, like those with chronic medical conditions, weren't getting timely access to the vaccine.

The province temporarily shut down the clinics on Oct. 31 amid fears of a national vaccine shortage. When the clinics reopened, the province rolled out vaccinations in stages by gradually adding high-risk groups.

The program reopened to the general public on Monday.

Swann criticizes Health Minister Ron Liepert for the strategy. While Liepert was unhappy with Swann's comments, he didn't demand an apology or a retraction.

"I think that there are things that happened that if we had to do it all over again, there are some things we'd do differently," Liepert said. "I believe there are also some things that have been said over the past four or five weeks that, if people had to do it all over again, they'd do it differently."

On Monday, the rollout of vaccines to the general public appeared to go smoothly, with minimal waits for shots at clinics in Edmonton and Calgary.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cbc/091123/canada/canada_edmonton_edmonton_swann_liepert_h1n1_comments_2

 

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Re: Vaccine delay may have led to flu deaths: Swann

Flu rates higher in Alberta
Liberals blame vaccine bungling

By Archie McLean and Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com
November 24, 2009 6:41 AM




There were no lineups at the Commonwealth Stadium immunization site, where the general public could get their H1N1 immunization vaccination on Monday, Nov. 23, 2009.

Photograph by: Brian J. Gavriloff, edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON ? The Alberta Liberals blame poor planning and an inept rollout of the vaccination program for per-capita hospitalization and death rates from H1N1 flu in the province that are nearly twice the national average.

But Dr. Andre Corriveau, the province's chief medical officer of health, warns it's far too soon to know why the numbers appear higher in Alberta than in most other provinces.

Data compiled by the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada, and supplied to the media by the Liberals, show 42 people died in
Alberta from the H1N1 flu up to Nov. 14, and 219 in all of Canada (Alberta's death toll has since risen to 47).

The province's death rate from H1N1 flu is 11.39 per million people --nearly double the national average of 6.49.

Between April 2009 and Nov. 14, there were 893 hospitalizations in Alberta from the H1N1 flu--the number now sits at 1,042. That amounts to 242 hospitalizations per million people -- far above the national average of 161 and second only to Quebec among the more populous provinces.

Liberal Leader David Swann said the government's decision to initially offer the vaccine to all Albertans--rather than just to high-risk groups as other provinces did--prevented patients most at risk from getting immunized in a timely fashion.

"Do I believe that the(health)minister has killed people?No," Swann said Monday. "What I believe is his decisions to rollout the vaccination in a unique way has contributed to illness and death rates in this province."

Corriveau said many factors could be pushing up the death and hospitalization rates. Now that the province has one health region, the reporting system is quickly catching every death and hospitalization.

"There is no lag time," he said. "We pretty much find out the next day of every new case that occurs...I think we're picking up a lot of cases quickly because we have a very good system in place right now to test everyone who is seen in emerg(ency), who is admitted to hospital, who's in ICU, even people who die suspiciously in the community through our medical examiner system. We basically have a fast-track approach to diagnosing those cases."

Corriveau said he doesn't know if provinces such as B.C., which still has many regional health authorities each with potentially different reporting systems, is tabulating such cases as quickly.

"It's too soon to know if this is a true difference or an artificial one, because our reporting system seems to be working really smoothly at this point."

Health Minister Ron Liepert down-played Swann's accusations. He said in the legislature he hadn't seen the numbers, but wasn't concerned.

"We can drag up all of the statistics and all of the negative comments we want, but the key thing is that some 650,000 Albertans have now been vaccinated and by Christmas we anticipate every Albertan who wants to be vaccinated, can be vaccinated," Liepert said.

Lineups at immunization clinics in Edmonton were minimal Monday morning when they were opened to admit the general public.

Corriveau said it will take several months to fully understand the statistics. It makes sense for Alberta to have higher death rates than Ontario or Quebec, he said, since the pandemic is moving west to east across Canada, with the peak of the infection's second wave hitting Eastern Canada a full week after Alberta. People often get sick several weeks before they need intensive care in hospitals or die.

That doesn't explain why B.C. has a lower death rate than Alberta, since B.C. was hit hard first, but Corriveau said other demographic factors may come into play, especially since B.C. is considered the healthiest province in Canada. Data from Statistics Canada in 2004 show B.C. residents have lower rates of obesity and lung cancer than other provinces, and both chronic health conditions put people at higher risk of developing complications from the flu.

In Alberta, more than one-third of the people who died with H1N1 were obese, Corriveau said. Of the 47 people who have died, 46 had underlying health conditions such as heart problems or asthma. More than 80 per cent of those hospitalized also had chronic health conditions.

"Do we have more people with chronic illness on a per-capita basis than B.C.? I think yes," Corriveau said. "That's probably a factor that plays into it. This virus doesn't hit randomly."

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/rates+higher+Alberta/2256722/story.html