Preparations are under way in Snohomish County to administer about 100,000 doses of swine flu vaccine in a matter of weeks.
With public supplies expected to arrive in late October, the goal is to have 100,000 people vaccinated by Nov. 15, said Dr. Gary Goldbaum, health officer for the Snohomish Health District.
To do that, medical officials throughout the county were coordinating with health district officials Friday to pull together their battle plan for getting people immunized quickly once the vaccine arrives.
As one measure of the size of the job, that’s roughly equivalent to vaccinating every man, woman and child in the city of Everett.
“This is truly an effort that the community is rallying behind,” Goldbaum said.
Plans are being made to set up a dozen or more one-day, mass-vaccination clinics throughout the county, probably on weekends. Among those helping to plan the effort are professionals from hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and emergency-response groups.
As many as 2,000 people could be vaccinated at each clinic. No one will be denied a shot due to lack of insurance, Goldbaum said.
“We really want to get the vaccine out as quickly as possible,” he said. “We know (swine flu) already is circulating in the community.”
The swine flu outbreak began in the spring and has now spread worldwide, the first pandemic of the 21st century. It has killed about 600 people nationally, including two men in Snohomish County.
A nasal spray is expected to be the first type of swine flu vaccine to arrive here, probably around the second week of October.
With the first shipment expected to have only about 6,000 doses, health care workers, paramedics and other emergency-services workers will have priority for getting it.
The nasal-spray vaccine delivery is not recommended for pregnant women and those with underlying health conditions, such diabetes, asthma, heart and lung disease, and immune system problems.
But the nasal spray is only about one-fifth of overall swine flu vaccine production, federal health officials said Friday. So most people who want the vaccine will have to wait for the shot.
The first batches of the shot are expected to arrive in Snohomish County in late October. But it is not recommended as widely as the shot for the typical seasonal flu.
The swine flu shot is recommended for pregnant women, people who care for children under 6 months of age, children and adults between 6 months and 24 years old, and people 25 to 64 years old with chronic health conditions.
These groups were chosen because they were hardest hit by the virus this spring, causing hospitalizations and deaths.
One big group being excluded from swine flu shots is seniors, because they have not been sickened from the virus in the numbers that other groups have.
The Defense Department is requiring active-duty service members to get the H1N1 vaccine, just as they’re required to get a seasonal flu vaccine, said Capt. Dan Frederick, the Navy’s regional public health emergency officer. The vaccine is expected to be available at Navy medical facilities in mid- to late October.
With millions of doses of swine flu vaccine available nationally, eventually there should be enough for anyone in the recommended groups who wants to get it, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday.
However, with supplies being sent to 90,000 different clinics and other locations nationally, distribution could be smoother in some places than others, he said.
“We ask people to be patient and understand that we’re getting out vaccine as quickly as possible,” he said.
Frieden predicted that the vaccine will be highly effective in preventing swine flu because there’s a good match between the vaccine and the virus.
Yet swine flu is spreading widely throughout the nation, he said, and it is impossible to predict what this flu season holds in store.
“We’re in uncharted territory,” he said, noting that the virus first spread in the spring, continued throughout the summer — though at slower rates — and is now surging again.
“We haven’t see a flu season like this … since 1957 when there was a somewhat similar pattern in the summer and fall,” he said.
So far, the virus has not shown signs of changing, which could lead to it becoming a more serious illness.
But people should not take the disease lightly, Frieden said.
“Influenza is perhaps the most unpredictable of all infectious diseases,” he said. “Only the future will tell if H1N1 becomes more deadly in the weeks and months to come.”
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486, salyer@heraldnet.com.
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