Of the five deaths, two were children and two seniors; three of the dead lived in the Edmonton area and two in the Calgary area; the H3N2 flu strain took the lives of two of the victims while three were killed by H1N1. Further information on the victims is not being released due to reasons of confidentiality.
At the news conference, Dr. Martin Lavoie, the acting chief medical officer of health, said neither youth nor good health guarantees immunity. “We’ve seen people of all ages, whether they were healthy or not, being affected,” he said. “Some of them severely and some of them dying.”
A medical officer of health in the province, Dr. Gerry Predy, said the number hospitalized with the flu rose from 30 to 84 in one week and keeps rising. Only about 1 million of province’s 4 million residents have gotten a flu shot and Dr. Predy urged others to follow suit.
“It’s a serious illness, it causes people to get very sick. It kills people. And it’s preventable,” Dr. Predy said. “People always talk about, ‘What can we do to prevent things?’ Well, here’s a preventable disease that people aren’t taking advantage of a preventive measure.”
The flu vaccine in Alberta is free of charge.
Of the five deaths, four did not have the vaccine and one, a child, had been given the first phase of the two-phase vaccine given to children under nine. Alberta purchased 2 million doses of the influenza vaccine this year, a vaccine considered to be effective.
Last year 33 people died from the flu in Alberta in a season where the vaccine, unlike this year, was considered to be almost useless.
“We are in the early stages of this outbreak, and it’s not too late for people to get their vaccines.” he added. “That’s the key message we want to get out today.”
