OTTAWA - As far back as 2004, the federal-provincial plan for combating a potential pandemic warned Canada to seek more than one supplier of vaccine - advice that wasn’t followed in the run-up to this week’s countrywide shortages.
With one parliamentarian already believed to be suffering from H1N1, opposition Liberals Wednesday pointed to the February 2004 Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan, which laid out a painstaking strategy in case an international health emergency closed borders and endangered vaccine supplies from abroad.
“Canada has invested in a domestic supplier to offset this possibility,” the plan says, adding, “however, it will not be known whether this supplier will be able to produce enough vaccine for the entire target population in a timely manner Š the possibility of multiple suppliers should be considered in the planning process.” The recommendation is still part of the official pandemic plan in 2009, but the Conservative government placed an order in August for all of Canada’s
H1N1 vaccine from a single company, GlaxoSmithKline.
“Some of the vaccine should be purchased from another supplier in order to make sure that you don’t get into the trouble we’ve just been in over the last two weeks,” said Liberal health critic Dr. Carolyn Bennett.
The Liberals were in power in 2004 and didn’t contract with more than one drug firm either. But “there was just an understanding that when it came time to buy vaccine that we would buy it from two different companies,” Bennett said.
Tim Vail, a spokesman for Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, said the Tory government took advice from pandemic planning experts and Canada’s chief public health officer on vaccine supply. He said even with one supplier, Canada is better off than other nations.
Meanwhile, the Bloc Quebecois said MP Claude Guimond from Rimouski was believed to have H1N1 and was awaiting test results. Guimond showed up for an important House of Commons vote wearing a facemask Wednesday.
The Public Health Agency of Canada said there will be 1.8 million doses of
H1N1 vaccine available next week. For the current week, there were only 660,000 vials shipped out from GSK.
GSK president and CEO Paul Lucas said “it’s very hard to predict” whether Canada would have been any better off if there had been more than one company making the vaccine.
“The world and Canada have never run a mass vaccination program for all of its people for influenza.
“We cannot afford to compromise on the quality of this product and we will not compromise on the quality of this product.” christina.spencer@sunmedia.ca
