A national shortage of H1N1 vaccine has prompted Alberta Health Services to cancel all immunization clinics across the province.
All H1N1 clinics that were scheduled for Sunday and next week are cancelled until further notice.
Dr. Gerry Predy, Sr. Medical Officer of Health for the province made the announcement in Edmonton on Saturday and said they will reevaluate the situation on a daily basis.
"Alberta Health asked us to cancel the clinics because the clinics we've been running, although we've been asking people at high risk to come forward, we know that there are a lot of people coming through there who are not in high risk groups so we are going to refocus our efforts, given the limited supply of the vaccine, to be more stringent in the way we screen people as they come through the door," said Dr. Predy.
Dr. Predy says that they will be refocusing clinics to target high risk groups only and that they do have enough vaccine to cover those people.
The high risk group includes pregnant woman; children six months to less than five years of age; people under 65 with chronic health conditions; people living in remote and isolated communities; and health care workers.
The high risk clinics will be screening patients to make sure they fit into the target group and they are asking healthy people to be patient and allow those who are most at risk to get the shot first.
The new clinics will be announced in the next few days and AHS says people should check their website regularly for times and locations.
So far, officials estimate that over 300,000 vaccinations were given out in the province in less than a week.
