Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
This is the first time in Canadian history that we have had such a huge vaccination campaign. One of our primary responsibilities is to ensure that Canadians have reliable, up-to-date and complete information on the H1N1 influenza and on how to protect themselves during the epidemic.
I would like to focus on the methods we have used to inform Canadians during the pandemic and on how we foresee pursuing the information campaign.
The number of activities we have undertaken over the past six months is quite simply phenomenal. Communications have been shared at a breakneck pace from day one. Take for example the number of people who have consulted the Public Health Agency's Web site: more than 3.1 million hits since April.
I should also mention the great interest in the Government of Canada's H1N1 Preparedness Guide. Nearly 300,000 guides have been ordered or downloaded. We will have to reprint the guide again after distributing more than 650,000 copies to 6,500 Canadian post offices in two weeks alone. We will not have enough guides and we released them just two weeks ago.
We have also launched massive media campaigns. The Public Health Agency of Canada is broadcasting a message to all Canadians. This week, that message was heard on 238 radio stations. Health Canada is broadcasting messages to first nations and Inuit people through 80 radio stations in addition to public service announcements on northern community stations. The department has also published messages targeted to these people in 43 community newspapers and placed advertising banners on first nations and Inuit websites. Between October 19 and October 30, we mailed a brochure to more than 10 million Canadian households, to tell families how to identify the H1N1 virus and where to find additional information.
There is a great deal of interest in the H1N1 flu. The Government of Canada is responding to that demand by providing timely, factual and relevant information on the virus. The degree of awareness about H1N1 in Canada is now extremely high, particularly considering that six months ago no one had heard of the H1N1 virus or the pandemic.
We are finding out that people are making decisions regarding their health and are assessing the choices available to them.
The information campaigns, the public announcements, the numerous interviews given by the Minister of Health and by Dr. Butler-Jones, and the press conferences we are holding several times a week are all initiatives which show clearly that we are providing Canadians with a great deal of quality information.
Here is another example. On Tuesday, after vaccination centres opened across the country, we noticed a threefold increase in the number of people visiting the Public Health Agency of Canada's FightFlu.ca website. Until then, the all-time record was 60,000 hits. On that Tuesday, 196,000 people visited the site, or 22,000 people per hour. Canadians know about the FightFlu.ca website, and they visit it in large numbers.
They look at an average of three pages each time, which is very good. They spend more time on these pages, which means that they are actually reading the content and that they go further to get information.
It is also easy to see that they are showing up at vaccination centres. They want to get vaccinated. Three weeks ago, few people wanted to get the vaccine. We are working with all our partners to ensure that Canadians will indeed get vaccinated.
Our efforts are paying off, and because everyone has worked together so closely, we are ready for whatever winter brings.
When the epidemic began, we distributed more than four million health alert notices to travellers in Canadian airports, in cooperation with Transport Canada.
In late April, we started running infection prevention messages in 24 international airports in Canada, in cooperation with the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.
In May, we distributed posters to 49 airports showing how to prevent infection by using proper hand washing technique and coughing into one's sleeve, for example.
We have also signed an agreement with the Weather Network, which is using information from the Public Health Agency's FluWatch site on its website and its television stations in French and English. The Weather Network is also broadcasting general infection prevention messages on behalf of PHAC.
The volume of targeted, factual, complete information we are providing to Canadians and the variety of methods we are using to do so are quite simply unprecedented in Canadian history.
I could also remind this House that the national communication strategy is a multi-tiered strategy. The federal government is not alone in providing Canadians with information. We are working in partnership with the provinces and territories and local authorities.
All the information Canadians are receiving is coherent and comes from reliable sources in the public health community.
We are ready, and we are helping Canadians get ready and get informed.