An Aboriginal community in northeastern Manitoba has closed schools and daycares in an attempt to stem the tide of what leaders say is an H1N1 flu pandemic.
Chief David Harper of the Garden Hill First Nation said Wednesday that the community has also cancelled public events and is sanitizing buses and police cars now that it has two confirmed cases of H1N1 flu.
There are also a number of suspected cases in nearby St. Theresa Point. As of Tuesday, more than a dozen residents there had been hospitalized with flu symptoms.
Harper told reporters Wednesday that the federal government must step in to improve health services in the region, as well as housing conditions.
Garden Hill First Nation is a remote community about 500 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. One of the cases there is Peter Flett, an 18-month-old who was released from hospital Wednesday.
The boy's mother said Peter began to show symptoms like high fever and respiratory problems in mid-May but the illness wasn't diagnosed.
"The first time I took him to the nursing station, they gave him a bath because his temperature was really high, then after his bath, they told me to take him home," mother Christina Flett told Â鶹´«Ã½ Winnipeg.
When the symptoms didn't improve, Flett again took her child in for care but was sent home again. With his symptoms serious earlier this week, the infant was finally flown to a hospital in Winnipeg.
Flett and 10 others currently live in her father's home due to mold problems in her own house.
On Tuesday, chief Harper said he was concerned about the other family members who live in the home. He said inadequate living conditions are contributing to the spread of disease.
"There's another child who has the same symptoms who comes from the same home, which has three families," Harper said.
"Housing is an issue."
But the province's chief public health officer, Dr. Joel Kettner, defended the province's response to the flu Wednesday as adequate.
The province is also revamping its air ambulance dispatch centre and making sure extra doctors are available for northern areas, officials said.
Meanwhile, the province has confirmed 16 new H1N1 cases, bringing the total number to 56.
In the province's south, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority is asking people who have been sick with the flu over the past week to stay away from visiting family or friends at local hospitals.
"We're just trying to limit the traffic a little bit," said WRHA spokesperson Jan Currie.
With files from The Canadian Press
