The North Shore's medical health officer is urging people to get vaccinated against this year's flu after a sharp increase in the number of cases showing up in the past two weeks.
"The last two weeks have been a brisk of upturn (in the number of flu cases," said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, the medical health officer.
"We're still recommending people get immunized now if they can," he said.
That could be easier said than done, however, as many pharmacies and clinics have run out of the vaccine.
"We are out," said Rahel Thomson, a pharmacist at Davies Pharmacy in North Vancouver on Thursday.
"People are having a hard time finding it."
Thomson said demand for the vaccine has definitely been higher than usual after people started hearing about recent hospitalizations from the flu. The pharmacy did about a quarter of its total flu vaccinations in the past week, she said - and people are still phoning about it.
The story was the same at the walk-in medical clinic at Lonsdale and 19th and at London Drugs on Lonsdale, although the London Drugs in West Vancouver still had limited supplies as of Thursday.
"It's getting extremely low," said John Tse, vicepresident of pharmacy for
London Drugs. Tse said public health authorities and private clinics have to order vaccines eight months in advance and can't simply go and get more. "Whatever is there is there."
Nobody has been hospitalized for the flu yet on the North Shore, although 20 people in the Vancouver Coastal Health Region have been admitted to hospital with the flu over the past two weeks. Three people in B.C. have died.
Most people who have the flu are getting the H1N1 strain, said Lysyshyn - the same type that caused an unusually severe flu outbreak four years ago. The strain appears to hit more middle-aged people, rather than the very old and very young - as is more normally the case with other flu strains. Lysyshyn said that's because middleaged people are less likely to have been exposed to the virus before.
Lysyshyn said it's possible those who got H1N1 previously may have some immunity to the virus, but added the strain has also changed since it hit the Lower Mainland four years ago.
The illness caused by the virus usually includes a nasty combination of fever, aches, coughing and cold like symptoms.
The flu vaccine isn't 100 per cent effective - most years the immunization has about a 50 to 60 per cent prevention rate.
This year, however, there is a good match between the vaccine and the strain of the flu circulating, so effectiveness is likely higher, said Lysyshyn.
Lysyshyn suggested people call their family doctor or local pharmacies to see if they still have the vaccine before heading out to get a shot.
The H1N1 flu is not the same as H5N1 - or "bird flu" - which is much more deadly and rarely spreads between humans. One Alberta woman died this week from bird flu after returning from a trip to China.
