The biggest mass vaccination campaign in BC history is about to get under way with high priority groups being the first to be inoculated against swine flu.

Northern Health Authority chief medical officer Dr. David Bowering said some vaccinations will be given this week via local physicians with the “major roll out” through public health clinics beginning next week.

The first round of inoculations will target people under 65 with chronic risk conditions (diabetes, heart disease or lung disease), women in the second half of their pregnancy and all people, including First Nations, who live in remote or isolated communities.

Round two will be expanded to everyone else, but he said a priority would be NHA’s own health care workers. “As soon as we possibly can, we’d like to have them immunized.”

Family contacts of young children who are at particularly high risk would be another priority group.

There is no charge for the H1N1 shot.

Although the North’s vaccination push is starting a little later than in South, Bowering pointed out the North is lagging behind the rest of the province in terms of the H1N1 outbreak.

Therefore, “In a sense we’ll be starting at least as early in relation to the epidemic, or maybe earlier, than some other places.”

Provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said there will be enough vaccine for everyone in BC.

BC will also now allow vaccine recipients to get both H1N1 vaccine and seasonal flu vaccine at the same time - one shot in each arm.

Kendall said there’s now expert opinion that the two vaccines can be given simultaneously, rather than at least a few weeks apart as originally thought.

Children under 10 years old are to receive two half doses of the vaccine given three weeks apart.

The doses now arriving are adjuvanted vaccine: they contain compounds that boost the immune system’s response and allow smaller amounts of the active vaccine ingredient to be used in each dose.

An unadjuvanted version of the vaccine that’s considered safer for pregnant women is expected to be available by the second week of November. But those who are in the second half of pregnancy are urged not to wait and to quickly get the adjuvanted vaccine.

“The risk of contracting H1N1 and developing a complication if you’re pregnant far outweighs any possible theoretical risk from an adjuvanted vaccine,” Kendall said.

As for “conspiracy theory paranoia” that can be found on the web, Kendall stressed, “We would not be recommending a vaccine we did not think was safe.”