Ahousat health official called the Canadian Medical Association Journal "irresponsible and inflammatory"

Ahousat health official called the Canadian Medical Association Journal "irresponsible and inflammatory"

Vancouver : Ahousat B.C. health official called the Canadian Medical Association Journal "irresponsible and inflammatory" on Thursday for an article about the H1N1 influenza virus circulating in a Vancouver Island aboriginal community.

The article posted by the journal Thursday said a group of small communities on Vancouver Island, including the remote aboriginal community of Ahousat, B.C., were suffering the first pandemic outbreak of the coming flu season.

The report said most of the cases were mild, and only two patients were hospitalized.

But Dr. Charmaine Enns, the northern island medical health officer and the medical director for aboriginal health for the Vancouver Island Health Authority, said the report was simply not true.

"I need to express my disappointment in that publication," Enns said during a hastily organized conference call.

"I actually found that reporting to be not only irresponsible, but inflammatory. There was no securing the facts before that was printed. I find that really unfortunate."

Enns said there were a number of mild cases in Ahousat, which is accessible only by boat or plane, and two other small communities in the area, but nobody had been hospitalized.

She said that in about 95 per cent of cases, flu symptoms are managed at home and no doctors or hospitals are involved. But Ahousat is an aboriginal population, which is considered high-risk she said.

The authority had asked health practitioners to test all patients showing signs of influenza in such communities in order to give health officials early warning to get supplies and expertise to the area, she said.

A call to the publication was not returned.

Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones, said in Winnipeg that clusters of H1N1 such as the one on western Vancouver Island occurred throughout the summer.

"It never totally went away," Butler-Jones said of H1N1. "We are seeing clusters. We will continue to see clusters."

He said the island cases are no indication that the next wave of the influenza has begun. That's good news to Canadian health officials, who don't expect to have vaccine until later this fall.

While the health authority said the flu cases in Ahousat were not unusual, the virus claimed the life of a patient from another island First Nations community.

Dr. Richard Stanwick, the chief medical health officer for the island health authority, said an aboriginal woman in her 50s from Beecher Bay, just outside Victoria, was hospitalized Sept. 12 and died Wednesday. He said the woman had underlying health conditions.

A child from the community remains hospitalized.

Another non-aboriginal child from a community in the northern area of the island is in intensive care.

Dr. Evan Adams, the province's aboriginal health physician advisor, said the flu outbreak in Ahousat was actually a success story for the province's preparedness plan.

Adams said provincial health authorities have worked closely with native leaders in recent months to get ready for the flu season so that these communities, even remote ones such as Ahousat, have access to supplies and support "within a matter of hours."

Shawn Atleo, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said there was an "excellent" plan in place for the prevention and isolation of the virus in his home community of Ahousat.

But Atleo said he still has concerns overall.

"First Nations are well known to be the most vulnerable...The lack of infrastructure and clean water show broader health issues need to be addressed," Atleo said in Nova Scotia.

Tensions have flared between federal officials and some First Nations leaders over the prevention and treatment of H1N1 among the aboriginal population.

A disproportionate number of aboriginals in northern Manitoba communities ended up on ventilators in intensive care when the flu first hit last spring. Then, when flu supplies arrived, some leaders were angry that the antibacterial agents contained alcohol.