Via the Globe and Mail, a report by Caroline Alphonso: Swine flu less severe than feared? Excerpt:
The pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in Canada is not as severe as expected nor is it spreading quickly, the country's top public health official has determined as he put the brakes on an early rollout of the vaccine.
Canadians will be able to get the swine flu vaccination in early November, which will allow Health Canada to review more clinical-trial data and follow the regulatory process it set out for approving the pandemic vaccine.
The United States, China and Australia have begun inoculating their citizens against swine flu, now the dominant influenza strain. But David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public-health officer, assured Canadians yesterday that the majority of cases so far have been mild and, despite a few clusters in British Columbia, there is no widespread illness.
“Right now in Canada, unlike in the United States, we are not seeing widespread influenza activity,” Dr. Butler-Jones said in a conference call. “We're many weeks behind the Americans in terms of rates of disease.”
Canadian health authorities planned to push through bureaucratic red tape and move up the delivery of the vaccine if the disease turned more severe this fall. Despite assurances from Dr. Butler-Jones that this is not happening, some health experts fear that the virus could resurface with a vengeance this month, well before Canadians are vaccinated.
