The summer camps are a warning of what will happen when schools reopen in the fall, just when the fall flu season arrives. Will the teacher even show up for work? Do school boards have a plan? Will bus drivers show up for work? Will a vaccine be ready? Will it work? Will anyone take it? So many questions. And Peacenik has no sense that society will be ready for a new and improved swine flu pandemic tomorrow, or in the fall.
Gloria Galloway
Ottawa — From Friday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Friday, Jul. 17, 2009 09:08AM EDT
Canadians will have a better chance of getting vaccinated against the pandemic influenza than people in many other countries, including the United States and Britain, thanks to nearly a decade of planning for the disease's arrival.
“We're actually in a fairly unique position of having domestic capacity, of having planned for that in Canada now for many years,” David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail Thursday.
In 2001, the federal government began a 10-year agreement with a drug company that was eventually sold to GlaxoSmithKline. That contract obligates the giant pharmaceutical manufacturer to provide vaccine to every Canadian who wants it in the event of a pandemic.
Read on...
