Gearing up for swine flu

Assuming all goes well with the testing, a vaccine for H1N1 will be available for every Canadian who needs or wants it in time for the winter flu season, the government announced recently.

Minister of Health, Leona Aglukkaq and Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones, said the Government of Canada plans to order 50.4 million doses of H1N1 vaccine, which will be available to all Canadians who need and want it in time for the winter flu season.

"The Government of Canada will ensure sufficient H1N1 vaccine is available to immunize every Canadian who needs and wants protection from the H1N1 virus," said Minister Aglukkaq in a release.

"We are pleased to have worked together with provinces and territories in implementing a coordinated, pan-Canadian response to all elements of the H1N1 outbreak, including decisions around vaccines."

Clinical trials on the safety and effectiveness of the new vaccine are expected to begin by October, and if all goes well, immunization programs will begin by November, officials said. These timelines are largely consistent with pandemic vaccine development internationally.

The influenza pandemic has spread over the past several months during the Southern Hemisphere's winter, leaving officials in northern countries rushing to prepare for a second wave of the swine flu virus.

"The virus is still around and ready to explode," William Schaffner, an influenza expert at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine told The Washington Post. "We're potentially looking at a very big mess."

Still officials say that flu viruses are notoriously capricious, making any firm predictions impossible.

About H1N1

Since emerging last spring in Mexico, H1N1 has spread to at least 168 countries with more than 162,000 confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization. In both Canada and the US, a number of summer camps were affected by outbreaks of the illness, with hundreds of children becoming sick, and in some cases, the camps were forced to close.

The H1N1 virus, a strain of a contagious respiratory disease that affects pigs, spreads person-to-person, meaning it can continue to mutate and make it harder to treat. And while health officials say it is difficult to know just how serious the fall and winter outbreak will be, there are some simple steps we can take to protect ourselves from not only H1N1 flu, but from other types of influenza -- which experts say kill 250,000 to 500,000 people every year.

5 steps to protect yourself

Wash your hands a lot.

Hands spread an estimated 80 per cent of common infectious diseases, according to Health Canada. Yet while frequent hand washing is key to preventing infection, many of us don't do it properly.

Health officials say it is best to wash your hands with soap and water (for at least 15 seconds) or to use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 per cent alcohol. Antibacterial soaps, while increasingly popular, are no more effective at killing germs than regular soap and water, experts say. And using these soaps could lead to the development of bacteria that are resistant to the products' antimicrobial agents -- making it even harder to kill these germs in the future. (Read more tips on effective hand washing.)