Double flu season means double the vaccines for many

Published 9:58 pm Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Public health and school officials are gearing up for a long and busy influenza season that features an unusual double dose of viruses — the usual seasonal bug and the novel 2009 H1N1 strain commonly called swine flu.

That could mean more people staying home from work and school, while hospitals and clinics overflow with the feverish and frightened.

Doctors and county health officials prefer the first scenario and cringe at the second. They don’t want a repeat of what happened last spring when swine flu first swooped in and sparked school closures and packed doctors’ offices and hospitals.

“Our health care system was overwhelmed with people who weren’t necessarily sick or they had only mild illnesses,” said Matías Valenzuela, public education coordinator with the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health.

This time around, health experts are advising people to stay home until 24 hours after a fever passes.

Health and school officials in King and Snohomish counties have developed guidelines pertaining to swine flu and sent them to parents.

“In the spring, schools were closed (in other districts) based on one or two cases,” said Craig Degginger, a Shoreline School District spokesman. “Now we know this H1N1 flu is acting like the seasonal flu.”

Recommendations for avoiding swine flu and stopping its spread echo the usual seasonal advice: Wash your hands, cover your cough, keep your fingers away from your eyes and nose, and stay home when sick.

“This is a good time to arrange for a ‘flu buddy’ — a neighbor or friend to help bring you food or supplies if you get sick and need to stay home for a few days,” said Dr. Gary Goldbaum, health officer and director of the Snohomish Health District.

And get a flu shot.

And then another one.

Inoculation against the seasonal flu won’t work against swine flu, but it may keep people healthier during flu season, public health officials say.

A vaccine against swine flu, developed and distributed by the federal government, should be available by mid-October, David Fleming, the director and health officer for the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, told board members last week.

The following people will be given top priority for the H1N1 vaccine:

Ÿ Pregnant women will be top priority

Ÿ Children and young adults age 6 months to 24 years

Ÿ People age 25 to 64 years with health conditions that could make them dangerously ill from the flu (such as those with heart disease or diabetes)

Ÿ Household members and caregivers of children younger than 6 months in age

Ÿ Health care workers and emergency medical service providers

People not on the priority list shouldn’t be worried, officials said.

“We’ll get enough vaccine for everyone who wants to get vaccinated,” Valenzuela said.

As of Sept. 18, 16 people have died of swine flu in Washington while there have been 171 hospitalizations, according to the state Department of Health. That includes three deaths in King County and two deaths in Snohomish County.

Cases did slow down this summer but have picked up recently. Emergency room visits related to influenza-like illness have doubled in the past two weeks in King County hospitals, health officials said.

Health officials are predicting more people may be sickened by the swine flu than seasonal flu, so that’s why getting a vaccine is being stressed.

Because both types of flu are similar, many people suffering from the flu this fall and winter may never know which virus “semi-trucked” them — kept them in bed for several days with oh-so-aching muscles, fever, chills, fatigue, cough and sore throat.

Doctors won’t be sending every suspected flu specimen in for testing unless the patient is hospitalized, said Romesh Gautom, director of the Washington State Public Health Laboratories.

In the spring, when swine flu was an unknown virus with unknown potential, the state lab received hundreds of samples every day, including weekends. Additionally, more labs are trained to test for the new virus, unlike the spring when hundreds of specimens arrived daily at the state lab in Shoreline.

“Three or four month months ago, we were the only game in town doing the testing,” Gautom said. “Now, private labs and hospitals are gearing up to test.”

Swine flu is considered a worldwide pandemic, meaning that it’s a new type of flu virus that rapidly spreads from person to person and country to country. It doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily more deadly, and the Washington residents most affected by swine flu tend to be children and young adults with underlying health conditions.

“It appears that persons over age 50 have at least some immunity to this new H1N1 influenza, probably because they were exposed to similar strains in the past,” Goldbaum said. “That’s why our focus will be on a younger population when it comes time to vaccinate.”

This differs from seasonal flu which hits infants and the eldery hardest, often leading to secondary pneumonia and death. Annually, an average of 36,000 Americans die from flu and its complications and 200,000 are hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.