LETHBRIDGE – It’s that time of year again, and we don’t mean Christmas. Flu season is in full swing, but fewer Albertans are rolling up their sleeves this time around.
Alberta Health Services said Friday 883,577 Albertans had received the shot so far this season compared to 1,043,605 at this time last year.
The numbers are somewhat concerning to AHS medical officer of health for the Calgary Zone, Dr. Judy MacDonald.
“It may be reflecting the fact that we don’t think we’re in winter yet. We’ve been fortunate to have such warm weather,” MacDonald said.
“The other thing is we haven’t seen a lot of influenza yet, and those things together people may be saying, ‘Well, I’m going to wait.'”
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MacDonald cautions against waiting, since it can take two weeks after receiving the shot before a person develops enough antibodies to be considered protected.
So far this season, 298,413 doses of the vaccine have been given in the Edmonton Zone and 353,415 in the Calgary Zone.
“Last year at this time we had administered almost 70,000 doses more in Calgary,” MacDonald said, “but we were in winter, it was very snowy and cold and there was a lot of influenza activity.”
The number of flu cases are also down this year in the Lethbridge area.
“What we see this year is Influenza A mostly, and it’s the same Influenza A we saw last season. People would have been immunized last season, been exposed last season, which means it may be giving them some protection,” said AHS’ Dr. Karin Goodison.
In 2014, there were 78,470 vaccines administered in the South Zone. Five patients with cases of confirmed influenza were admitted to hospital and one death was reported in that zone.
So far this year, 66,334 people have been vaccinated in the South Zone, with no hospitalizations or deaths reported.
“We try to predict the best we can, but every season is very different and it could still come, and it could come hard,” added Goodison.
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The numbers are also down across the province by nearly 160,000 flu shots. Province-wide, there have been 58 lab-confirmed cases of the flu. There have only been 14 hospitalizations this year in Alberta, compared to 93 last year. There were seven reported deaths last year; none have been reported so far this year.
AHS said people tend to be reactionary, but they would like to see more people be proactive.
“Ideally we would like to see everyone vaccinated, certainly there’s enough vaccine purchased to cover 40 per cent of the population,” Goodison said. “Last year we reached about around 30 per cent of people getting immunized, and we would really like to see that increase.”
Goodison added clinics are still open and pharmacies are still administering the immunization. Click here to find a clinic near you.
“Certainly the young and the old are at highest risk for serious consequences, as well as those with pre-existing medical conditions.”
*Editor’s Note: This article was originally published Dec. 2 but was updated on Dec. 4 to include province-wide immunization numbers.
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