Health officials reiterate importance of H1N1 flu vaccination

by Laura L. Lundquist | January 27, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

Students didn’t return to the University of Montana in time to celebrate National Influenza Vaccination Week, which began Jan. 11. But late is better than never for university students to be vaccinated against the H1N1 influenza virus, said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a conference call Tuesday.

With students coming back together in dorms and classrooms, it’s easier for the flu virus to travel, Sebelius said.

“The flu season is not over,” Sebelius said. “It usually continues through March.”

Dr. Stephen Redd, Influenza Coordination Unit director for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, joined Sebelius in her concern.

“There is less flu now than in October and November,” Redd said. “But the flu tends to come in waves, and this strain is very unpredictable.”

Sebelius said this is a young person’s flu. People age 18 to 24 have been six times more likely to be infected with H1N1 than with another strain of flu. Redd said the CDC reported that half of Americans hospitalized with H1N1 were younger than 25. The best way to avoid joining them, he said, is to get the vaccination.

Dr. David Bell, director of the Curry Health Center, said the clinic has plenty of vaccine, so students should get it if they haven’t already. Since the government paid for it, the vaccine costs
students nothing. Last fall, 1,400 University of Montana students were vaccinated.

Bell said he couldn’t estimate the fall infection rate at UM because there is probably a large number of cases he doesn’t know about. The health center’s representatives had asked people not to go to the doctor with flu symptoms unless they became serious. Bell said the center was busy for about two weeks, but that it seems most people stayed home.

“The emergency rooms downtown reported that 30 or 40 percent of people were coming in with flu symptoms,” Bell said. “But we saw nothing like that.”

He said there is a chance of a spring wave of flu, so health organizations are hoping to stay ahead of it while the number of flu cases is low.

The conference call, hosted in part by MTV, featured 15-year-old Luke Duvall of Arkansas who caught the flu last fall. While most people have relatively mild symptoms, Duvall’s flu led to severe pneumonia. The high school athlete had to be put on a ventilator and was then put in a medically induced coma while doctors hoped and waited for his lungs to heal. Duvall said he wasn’t vaccinated because there wasn’t enough vaccine last fall. But now that the vaccine is plentiful, he is encouraging young people to get it.

“It would be silly not to get it and end up in the same condition as me,” Duvall said.

The Department of Health and Human Services has created a Web site at http://www.flu.gov that includes information about the vaccine, a flu clinic locator and a link to the “I’m a Flu Fighter” Facebook application.

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