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BBC MUNDO RADIO
2:00 a.m. September 20, 2009
Dr. Tony Reid of UCSD received a seasonal flu vaccine from medical assistant Sieryl Acoba. People are being encouraged to get shots now for the common flu, then return for one of more swine flu shots later. (John Gibbins / Union-Tribune) - ABOUT SWINE FLU
fever, sore throat, cough, congestion, chills, headache, body aches and fatigue. Some patients also report diarrhea and vomiting.
•If you're sick, avoid school, work and other public places.
•Wash your hands often and cover your sneezes.
•Don't take anti-viral drugs unless your medical provider prescribes them. When misused, the medications could help flu viruses gain resistance to treatment.
•For more details, call the 211 phone service or the county's swine flu line at (858) 715-2250.
Online: For a comprehensive overview of seasonal influenza and swine flu, go to uniontrib.com/more/fluguide
Looking for a swine flu shot? You won't have to wait much longer.
Supplies of the vaccine are set to arrive in as little as two weeks — sooner than expected — and there should be plenty of inoculation sites in the county.
That's the latest message of reassurance from local, state and national public health experts. They're working to finalize arrangements for delivering the H1N1 vaccine to schools, company offices, hospitals, medical groups, community clinics and drugstores.
About 435 health providers in San Diego County have registered with the state as swine flu vaccinators, and two local school districts — San Diego and Poway — have agreed to use their campuses as vaccination sites.
Many H1N1 inoculation clinics should be operating by the end of October or early November, when ample supplies of the vaccine should be available, said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer.
“A strategy is being mapped out,” she said. “I anticipate that there will be a lot of interest from the schools.”
County epidemiologists will hold their annual flu vaccination kickoff event Friday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in San Diego's Skyline neighborhood, where they plan to give seasonal flu shots to about 300 adults, said county spokesman Jose Alvarez.
People are being encouraged to get inoculated now for the common seasonal flu to give them some protection. Then they'll need one or more swine flu shots later.
For those who wait until the swine flu vaccine becomes available, they can get both types of shots during the same visit.
Even people who have contracted swine flu in recent months should still be vaccinated because there's no guarantee that their bodies have built up enough immunity to the virus, said Dr. Jay Butler, chief of the H1N1 vaccine task force for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Federal health officials said about 3.4 million doses of swine flu vaccine should be delivered in early October, about a week earlier than predicted.
Roughly 45 million more doses are set to arrive by Oct. 15, followed by additional shipments each week through the end of the year. The federal government has ordered 195 million doses and can order more if needed.
“Our goal is to ultimately make the vaccine available to every American who wishes to be vaccinated,” Butler said.
Although H1N1 influenza A has become a pandemic since San Diego County health experts first reported its presence in the United States last April, it hasn't been more virulent than strains of seasonal flu.
But epidemiologists aren't letting their guards down, mainly because this latest variety of H1N1 is novel. Up to 40 percent of Americans could be infected with the disease this fall and winter, according to the CDC.
A reminder of swine flu's danger surfaced last week, when San Diego County recorded its 22nd death linked to the virus. That total equals the number of influenza-related fatalities in the 2003-04 regular flu season, the highest recorded since the county began its tracking.
The process for distributing swine flu shots and nasal sprays came into sharper focus last week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine.
In a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, 57 percent of respondents nationwide said they would likely get vaccinated. San Diego County's Health and Human Services Agency came up with the same result in a random phone survey of 700 residents conducted a few weeks ago, Wooten said.
Typically, fewer than 100 million Americans are inoculated during each regular flu season. Public health experts foresee a higher turnout this year because of swine flu concerns.
Some people fear that over the long run, swine flu shots will create harmful side effects.
Rebecca Estepp of Poway won't be lining up for the vaccine. She's convinced that childhood immunizations triggered her son's autism.
“I really don't think three weeks of safety testing (for the swine flu vaccine) is enough,” Estepp said.
The CDC has recommended that the first swine flu shots go to health care workers and people most at risk of suffering serious complications from swine flu, such as pregnant women, children, adults up to 24 years old and people with certain medical conditions.
Initial supplies of the vaccine will be shipped to states proportionally based on population, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the CDC.
The federal government is distributing the vaccine free of charge, but individual health providers may charge a small fee to cover their costs for administering the shots, he said.
Qualcomm, one of the largest employers in the county, has registered with the state to give swine flu shots to workers at its San Diego campus, said spokesman Dan Wilinsky.
The company is already administering vaccine for the seasonal flu, Wilinsky said, and posters promoting immunization have been put up throughout the office.
Leaders of the San Diego Unified School District and the Poway Unified School District have signed up to become swine flu vaccination centers, and 22 other districts in the county have expressed interest.
Schools haven't played that role for decades, but county health officials said the campuses are ideal because they're centrally located within their communities.
Inoculations would be handled by the county's public health nurses, said Linda Zintz, spokeswoman for San Diego Unified.
The swine flu clinics would operate outside school hours and be open to the public, said Bill Chiment, associate superintendent of the Poway district.
“Having students and their parents coming together (for vaccinations) would really make the record-keeping process easier,” Chiment said. “The parents could sign releases right there with the kids — sort of one-stop shopping.”
Union-Tribune
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