A few needles prevented serious illness over the winter.

The Kelowna Outreach Urban Health clinic is crediting an immunization program for preventing an outbreak of pneumococcal disease among the city’s disenfranchised.

Interior Health Medical Health Officer and Director of Communicable Disease, Dr. Rob Parker, says many at-risk people avoided becoming ill because they received a vaccination in November 2007.

“Based on data from other outbreaks of this new bacterial strain and our own historical patterns, it’s clear that the pneumococcal immunization program worked to minimize the outbreak and prevent further serious illness for a group that historically have not accessed routine health care services,” said Parker.

He says earlier in the fall, 19 people in Kelowna’s downtown area became severely ill due to a new strain of pneumococcal bacteria.

“Pneumococcal disease can lead to blood poisoning, meningitis and pneumonia. To prevent further illness, a special outreach campaign was set up in November and 229 people were immunized at various locations. After the immunization campaign, only one more case of the outbreak strain of bacteria was reported in February.”

The Urban Outreach Health clinic was established in 2005 and expanded in 2007 with $550,000 from the province’s Health Innovation Fund.