Nurse Laura Gill administers a dose of the H1N1 flu vaccine in Ottawa in this November, 2009 photo.Pawel Dwulit/The Canadian Press
The Canadian government is looking for a back-up supplier for a pandemic flu vaccine, in the event another deadly virus rears its head, which shows that Canada has acknowledged its mistake, and learned from it.
This country simply did not have enough H1N1 vaccine ready for enough people when the pandemic was at its height last fall. Several provinces shunted schoolchildren to the back of the line, which made little sense morally or strategically. The vaccine was not ready before the pandemic peaked, and since the vaccine, once injected, required up to two weeks to take effect, it was, in effect, late. When people wanted it, it was not available; when it was available, people didn't want it.
Not all of that could be laid at the feet of the supplier, GlaxoSmithKline Inc., which has a plant in Sainte-Foy, Que., or blamed on the government's sole-supplier policy. There was a passel of problems, including poor communication between the Public Health Agency of Canada and the provinces about the availability of the vaccine supply, and poor understanding within public-health departments of the public's ever-evolving perception of the dangers of H1N1.
But there were also early glitches and longer-lasting bottlenecks at GlaxoSmithKline, as Paul Lucas, its president and CEO, acknowledges. Even Mr. Lucas says, "It's always good to have a back-up plan." Canada didn't appear to have one.
The sole-supplier strategy was a reaction to the 1976 swine-flu fiasco, when Canada ordered vaccine from the United States and it didn't arrive. The idea to produce enough supply for all Canadians within this country's borders is a good one, but security of supply is not, as the late football coach Vince Lombardi might have put it, the only thing; timeliness counts, too.
The pandemic, though it killed 18,000 worldwide and 428 in Canada, never lived up to its fearful billing. Even today, some argue that the fears were overblown, and the vaccine a waste of public money. It isn't true, though; an independent study found the vaccination program in Ontario, which reached only 33 per cent of the population, still managed to save 50 lives and prevent nearly a million cases of H1N1, thus averting 420 hospital admissions, 28,000 emergency-department visits and 100,000 visits to doctors' offices.
Vaccine supply is not the place to be putting all of a country's eggs in one basket, as it were. Canada may find some new mistakes to make, but at least it will not repeat the ones it made.