It was a busy flu vaccination season in the Guelph area – although it didn’t seem that way until two children at the same school died of the virus.
Wellington Dufferin Public Health says it had directly overseen 5,000 vaccinations as of Feb. 28.
More than 70 per cent of those vaccinations were delivered in February, following the deaths of two children in Guelph. Both children attended Westminster Woods Public School, but health officials have said that was a coincidence and there was no connection between the two cases.
Health unit data shows that 51,356 doses of the flu vaccine had been delivered to local healthcare providers as of Feb. 28, while 29,983 doses had been distributed to pharmacies in Guelph, Wellington County and Dufferin County. The healthcare provider number is roughly the same as last year’s figure, while the pharmacy number represents an increase of about 4,000 doses.
The health unit has also looked at immunization rates among local healthcare workers. It found that 92.2 per cent of employees in long-term care facilities had reported being immunized, as had 62.5 per cent of retirement home workers and 51.6 per cent of hospital staff.
