OH:
Paramedics first to get H1N1 vaccine mist
By Peggy O’Farrell • pofarrell@enquirer.com • October 12, 2009
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091012/NEWS01/310120053
A Blue Ash paramedic was among the first Greater Cincinnati residents to be vaccinated against H1N1 flu today.
Health-care workers, paramedics and EMS personnel are first in line for the vaccine as it begins rolling into the region. Hamilton County Public Health received 4,000 doses of FluMist vaccine Friday for distribution to local fire departments.
Health-care workers are high-priority for the vaccine because they’re at higher risk for being exposed to H1N1 and because they’ll be needed to care for the sick as the virus continues to spread, said Stephen Bjornson, medical director of Hamilton County Public Health.
In Ohio, paramedics and other EMS workers are also being trained to administer the vaccine.
“About two-thirds of our department have already been trained,” said Assistance Chief Chris Theders of the Blue Ash Fire Department.
Theders administered the vaccine to Kevin Murphy, a firefighter paramedic in Blue Ash. The county health department’s 4,000 plus doses were distributed to fire departments Friday and Monday.
Murphy said he might already have been in contact with people infected with the new flu strain.
“We’ve already been in contact with it, we think, when we’ve gone out on calls,” he said.
H1N1 is widespread in 37 states, including Ohio and Kentucky. Public health officials are asking Americans to be patient as H1N1 vaccine becomes available.
The first doses of vaccine will go to those at highest risk for the flu strain, including health-care workers with direct patient contact; people 6 months to 24 years old; parents and caregivers of babies younger than 6 months; pregnant women; and adults 25 to 64 with underlying health problems.
Health officials will start scheduling school vaccination clinics as soon as they have enough vaccine, Bjornson said.
“We’ve got about 93,000 school-aged children in Hamilton County, and if 60 percent of them consent to be vaccinated, we’re going to need quite a bit of vaccine,” he said.
FluMist is recommended for healthy people ages 2-49. The nasal spray uses a weakened, live virus, while injectable vaccine uses a killed virus. There is a very slight risk FluMist could give someone the flu, Bjornson said.
This year, children 9 and younger will need to get two doses of H1N1 vaccine, and health officials recommend everyone get vaccinated against both H1N1 and seasonal flu. H1N1 vaccine will not protect people against seasonal flu, and seasonal flu vaccine won’t protect people against H1N1.
In other H1N1 developments:
• The Northern Kentucky Health Department could get its first doses of injectable vaccine this week, said spokeswoman Emily Gresham Wherle. The shipment will be “very small,”she added, just like the shipment of FluMist the department received last week. Wherle estimated this week’s shipment would cover less about one-half of 1 percent of the approximately 385,447 people served by the department.
• The Cincinnati Health Department has upgraded its flu hot line. Callers to the 513-357-7499 phone number now get a voicemail recording that lets them request general information about treating flu, information on who should get the vaccine, school vaccination schedules or the chance to talk to a nurse with specific questions.
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported more than 1,500 deaths from H1N1. Last week, 19 flu-related pediatric deaths were reported, including 16 confirmed H1N1 tests. Ohio has reported five H1N1 deaths, including a 14-year-old Columbus area boy who died from the virus last week. Kentucky has reported five H1N1 deaths, all in adults. Lexington health officials reported Monday that a 60-year-old woman had died of the disease.
• Stephen Blatt, vice president of Infectious Diseases Consultants of Cincinnati, Inc., and medical director for infectious diseases with the TriHealth health-care network, will discuss H1N1 and pandemic flu in a 7:30 p.m. presentation Thursday at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Registration: Clara Matonhodze, 513-287-7230 or cmatonhodze@cincymuseum.org.
Swine-Flu Wave Poses Threat To Hospital ICUs, Studies Warn
OCTOBER 13, 2009
By BETSY MCKAY
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125535613677080299.html
Three new international studies detailing how patients became gravely ill with swine flu reinforce concerns that U.S. intensive-care units could be severely stressed as the second wave of the disease builds through the fall and winter.
Swine flu is mild for most people, but a portion become so ill they require sophisticated medical techniques and equipment to survive, according to the studies published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Some ICUs that treated the patients in the studies had trouble finding enough beds or keeping enough medication on hand.
The studies of patients in Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand were reported a week after the vaccine against the H1N1 flu began being distributed in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the disease has become widespread in 37 states.
Taken together, the studies show the proportion of severely ill patients who died from H1N1 varied from 17% in Canada to 41% in Mexico. Most victims were young adults or children who had health conditions that put them at greater risk. The patients deteriorated very rapidly after entering the hospital, struck by severe viral pneumonia, and then respiratory failure, shock and organ failure. They spent prolonged periods on mechanical ventilators.
“This is the most severely ill that we’ve ever seen people,” said Anand Kumar, lead author of one of the studies and an intensive-care attending physician for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in Canada. “There’s almost two diseases. Patients are either mildly ill, or critically ill and require aggressive ICU care. There isn’t that much of a middle ground.”
The findings underscore concerns among some U.S. public health and hospital officials that the country’s intensive-care facilities may not accommodate the swell of patients in a large-scale outbreak. An advisory panel to President Barack Obama warned this summer that as many as 300,000 patients could require intensive care at the peak of the infection, occupying between 50% and 100% of all ICU beds in affected regions. Such a scenario, which the panel described as “plausible” but not a prediction, “could place enormous stress on ICU units, which normally operate close to capacity,” the panel said.