H1N1 Vaccine Slow to Arrive, No Confirmed Cases in County

Health & Community Services (HCS) Director John Manning told the San Juan County Council on Oct. 20 that, to date, there have been no known hospitalizations of County residents related to the H1N1 flu virus.

Manning said that physicians and schools have reported what he termed “sporadic cases” of people suffering flu-like symptoms, but thus far there has been no indication of clusters of cases that could be termed “regional outbreaks.” No San Juan County residents have been tested for the H1N1 virus because only people ill enough to be hospitalized are tested.

However, Manning noted that there have been 7 H1N1-related deaths in other parts of the State of Washington during the last four weeks and hospitalizations in the Northwestern portion of the state have increased from 1 to 2 per week to 5-10 per week during the month of October.

County Emergency Management Director Brendan Cowan told the Council that the “Incident Command Structure” has been activated and preparations are being made to deal with a wide array of problems that could arise, should a serious outbreak occur. Health officials say that a serious outbreak could affect up to 1/3^rd of the County’s residents.

HCS Director Manning said that his department is concentrating its efforts on slowing the spread of the flu. “We’re trying to keep kids out of school if they are sick,” he said. Public health nurses are contacting the parents or guardians of all students reported absent from school with flu-like symptoms to gather information and provide advice about coping with the disease. Since the beginning of the school term, students have missed a total of 45 student-school days with flu-like symptoms.

Children are most vulnerable to the H1N1 strain of the flu because most have built up no immunity to this type of virus. Cases among otherwise healthy older adults tend to be somewhat less severe than the normal seasonal flu.

Manning said that among the reasons public health workers are being aggressive in trying to prevent the spread of flu this year is that shipments of vaccines against both the H1N1 and seasonal flu have been slow to arrive.

Manning said that the first shipment of 200 doses of the nasally administered H1N1 flu vaccine the County received has been distributed, either administered or sent to health care providers throughout the County. That vaccine is not suitable for pregnant women or people with chronic illnesses. A second small shipment, including injectible vaccine, which was expected last Friday is now expected to arrive later this week. The injectible vaccine is suitable for use the groups which can’t benefit from the type of vaccine which is administered nasally.

Production delays have reduced vaccine supplies nationwide. Because of the delays, plans for large inoculation clinics which HCS had scheduled for early November have tentatively been pushed back until later in the month. Manning said he is hopeful that over the next few weeks, shipments of the vaccines will begin arriving regularly.

As vaccine becomes available, it will be administered first to groups with a high health risk from H1N1 and those who are at high risk of coming in contact with and spreading the disease, such as health care workers and emergency responders.

The County will post updated information about the availability of both seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccines on its website at https://sanjuanco.com/flu as information is available.