A senior health official told The Peninsula yesterday that more quantities of the vaccine were expected in the weeks to come. Despite the availability of more stocks of the vaccine, the ongoing vaccination campaign targeting schoolchildren had received a lukewarm response from parents. Consent letters have already been distributed to the parents but the response has not been encouraging, said an official. Besides the false reports circulating about the vaccine, another major deterrent is the fact that the number of H1NI cases had fallen in the country drastically. “From the very beginning we had been facing difficulty in convincing people about the benefits of the vaccination. It has become even more difficult now because the H1N1 cases in Qatar are on the decline. No new deaths due to the disease were not reported over the past few weeks,” said the official. He, however, disagreed with the view that the H1N1 threat was exaggerated internationally. “This is not true. Hundreds of healthy people including children have died all over the world due to the pandemic. Still there is the potential threat of a third wave expected in the next few months. Why should we leave our people’s lives to chance while a tool to prevent the pandemic is available,” he asked. The H1NI vaccine as well as the seasonal flu vaccine are currently available to the public at designated health centers across the country as well as the outpatient clinics at the Hamad General Hospital. The official said there is no harm in getting both the vaccines together, but the two shots should not be on the same arm.