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Only 50 per cent of Alberta Health Services employees were immunized against the flu this fall, according to the latest data from the health authority.

That’s down from 52 per cent at the same time last year.

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“It’s not enough, obviously,” says Dr. Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for AHS. “Mandatory vaccination is pretty much the only way we’re going to move the dial.”

That’s a dramatic statement from Alberta Health Services’s top public health expert. For years now, both AHS and the provincial health department have insisted mandatory influenza vaccination wasn’t necessary, that public education could convince more health care and support workers to be immunized.

But flu-shot cheerleading just isn’t working.

Staff who work at the Stollery Children’s Hospital had the best immunization rate in the Edmonton zone this year at 63 per cent.

But that’s down significantly from the same time two years ago, when 73 per cent of Stollery workers were vaccinated.