Three additional flu-related deaths have been recorded in Calgary since last week’s report, Alberta Health Services (AHS) said Thursday.
The updated data statistics shows the number of lab-confirmed cases of Influenza A has jumped from 948 to 1,448. The number of cases of Influenza B has climbed from 199 to 324.
The Calgary Zone has the highest number of confirmed cases of both strains of the flu across the province as well as deaths, according to AHS.
In total, 459 people have been hospitalized because of the flu — 227 of those cases were in the Calgary Zone.
Earlier this week the effectiveness of the flu vaccine was called into question, after one study suggested it might only be 10 per cent effective against the dominant strain of influenza.
Australia, which used the same vaccine, saw severe illnesses during its flu season. That led doctors in North America to sound the alarm that the same scenario could happen in Canada and the U.S.
AHS said at the time it was too early to speculate whether the vaccine would be as ineffective here.
A total of 1,004,537 flu vaccines had been administered across the province as of Thursday’s report.
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