Thank you very much.
As Dr. Grondin said earlier, we held a press conference today to announce that the vaccine had been approved. We also updated our website, FightFlu.ca. The last time we appeared before the committee, we talked about fact sheets that we were preparing to put on the website. We put them on this morning. I invite you to go and look at the website. We have added fact sheets that provide information for pregnant women, young mothers or caregivers looking after babies under six months of age. There is also another one dealing with the benefits and risks of the vaccine and with what people should know before getting vaccinated. We have really increased the quantity and, we hope, the quality of information available so that Canadians can be well informed when they have access to the vaccine in their province or territory.
The last time we were here we mentioned we would be launching a personal preparedness guide, and you have a copy of this guide. It is available by calling 1-800-O-Canada, by downloading it on our website, and as of the end of this week it will also be available at Canada Post outlets across the country.
We launched this a week ago, and I can say that so far Service Canada has received more than 84,000 requests for this guide, which in seven days is huge. From a social marketing perspective it's highly unusual to get that much awareness and interest.
We have 7,800 downloads from our website for the product. Again, that's extremely high for a seven-day period, and that's only based on earned media--in other words, just the talk from media, not purchased media. That's coming. It also means that based on our analytics, we also know that through 1-800-O-Canada and the website some national organizations are also requesting quantities, so we know it meets the need of national organizations that require this kind of information for their own constituents and members of their organizations. We're really pleased with that.
Because we know that dosage is important to parents in particular and to individuals who want to know the facts on dosage, we created this downloadable document. It's an easy reference.
As well, later this week we are going to be mailing a pamphlet to all households that talks about symptoms: how to recognize symptoms, how to treat, what to do; it's very straightforward. It also contains the 1-800-O-Canada number and FightFlu.ca web URL, encouraging Canadians to obtain the preparedness guide.
Although there are clearly pockets of activity in some parts of the country as we move into flu season, we do know there's a level of complacency and a relatively low level of concern. We still think the opportunity is ripe to raise awareness about the H1N1 pandemic, to encourage Canadians to become informed about ways to recognize symptoms, and what to do if they become ill or need to care for family members.
I don't think we're there yet in terms of the level of awareness, in terms of some concrete actions that people need to take, so I think we've taken an important step in implementing our national social marketing strategy.
In a few days you're going to start hearing more radio ads encouraging people to become aware and informed of the symptoms of H1N1 and to take action, and in November we're also going to be providing more specific information nationally around the vaccine itself.
Although we announced the authorization today, we know the vaccine is just starting to roll out across the country. The intense activity around mass vaccination clinics will really start ramping up, so we're going to coincide our vaccination marketing activities and messages for that period of time, understanding that it will take between now and the end of December, probably around Christmas, before we have completed these vaccination campaigns. We need a certain window of time to ensure there are messages in the public domain so Canadians can make the informed choice they need to make.
That's the update I wanted to provide today.