2009 swine flu pandemic in Canada

The 2009 swine flu pandemic in Canada was part of an epidemic in 2009 of a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 causing what has been commonly called swine flu. In Canada, roughly 10% of the populace (or 3.5 million) has been infected with the virus, with 428 confirmed deaths (as of 20 February 2017); non-fatal individual cases are for the most part no longer being recorded. About 40% of Canadians have been immunized against H1N1 since a national vaccination campaign began in October 2009, with Canada among the countries in the world leading in the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated. The widespread effect of H1N1 in Canada raised concerns during the months leading to the XXI Olympic Winter Games, which took place in Vancouver in February 2010.

Human cases

Alberta

As of 9 April 2010, there were 1,278 confirmed hospitalized cases in Alberta.

On 2 May 2009, Canadian Food Inspection Agency executive vice-president Brian Evans announced that an infected Alberta farm worker recently returned from Mexico had apparently passed the virus to a swine herd in his care. Although the herd had been quarantined, Evans stressed that the infection represented no threat to food safety and judged the possibility of infected pigs passing the virus back to humans "remote". Evans said the infection of the herd was the first known case of the H1N1 virus being transmitted from humans to pigs. Transmission from the same herd of pigs back to humans was revealed on 20 July, though it occurred on 7 May when the humans, health inspectors, were taking samples from the infected herd with improper self-protective measures.

On 8 May, health officials in Alberta confirmed that swine flu contributed to the death of a woman in Northern Alberta on 28 April, Canada's first death associated with the illness.