Fifty-six pharmacies across Ottawa are scheduled to offer flu-shot clinics beginning this week as part of a new initiative by Ottawa Public Health.
The in-store clinics will open on Oct. 27 and run until December, according to an Ottawa Public Health report released recently to city council.
“There will be some pharmacies in Centretown that will be offering the clinic so we encourage people to contact their pharmacy,” says Riccardo Lucchini, a nurse with OPH’s community immunization program.
The two largest drug stores in Ottawa, Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexall, will both offer flu-shot clinics, he says.
The Ontario government will allow pharmacists to administer the vaccination after proper training has been received, officials announced in early October.
Pharmacists will be permitted to vaccinate healthy people five years of age and older.
“Getting the flu shot is important because (influenza) can be a very serious infection,” says Lucchini.
By getting the shot, he adds, you are preventing the possibility of missing days of work or school.
“But more importantly, you are helping to protect people in the community who are most vulnerable to influenza,” he says.
Flu cases are reduced to 61 per cent and mortality 28 per cent in Ontario as a part of its immunization program, according to the report on the new initiative.
Approximately 44 per cent of adult residents reported receiving the flu shot in Ottawa last flu season.
Ottawa flu vaccination rates have been consistently higher than the Ontario average over the last four years, says the report.
Flu infection rates are highest among children, but serious illness and death rates are highest in seniors and for people with underlying medical conditions, says Donna Baker, manager of infection prevention and control at Bruyère Continuing Care, a major Ottawa network of health centres.
Among the sites under Bruyère’s umbrella is Saint-Vincent Hospital.
She said flu-shot programs are targeting people at high risk of complications from influenza, those who could transmit the flu to vulnerable individuals, as well as essential community service providers.
Vaccination clinics will be held at Saint-Vincent and other Bruyère-sites.