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US begins A(H1N1) flu vaccination
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-06 10:59 Around-the-clock work for vaccine The vaccine will reportedly trickle in at a rate of about 20 million doses a week, and officials are unsure how many Americans will actually get them. The US government is providing them for free, but clinics and retailers may charge to administer them.
The US government has ordered about 250 million doses from five companies, namely Sanofi-Aventis SA, CSL Ltd., Novartis AG, GlaxoSmithKline and MedImmune. Some officials predicted that an ample supply of the injectable form will be available by mid-October. CDC Spokesman Jay Butler has told reporters that there will be enough supply of vaccine for anyone who wants it. He said vaccine makers will ship 10 million to 20 million doses per week over the next couple of months. As some people are worried about the safety of the vaccine, federal and local governments have once and again told them that the new vaccine is safe to be administered. According to media reports, the H1N1 vaccine is made in the same way as the regular winter flu vaccine that is used with very few, minor side effects by nearly 100 million Americans each year. Prepare for the worst Statistics show that from August 30 until September 26, the CDC tallied 16,174 hospitalizations of the H1N1 flu cases nationwide and 1,379 deaths associated with the H1N1 virus infection. Dozens of children and at least 28 pregnant women in the United States have died from the virus and at least 100 pregnant women were sick enough to be hospitalized in intensive care, the CDC said. The A(H1N1) virus infection was first identified in the United States in late April. By August, 555 people had died of the new virus with 8,842 hospitalizations. More than 40,000 confirmed and probable cases had been reported and more than 1 million infections were estimated to have occurred in the country. On Friday, the CDC said that latest data showed 27 states had geographically widespread influenza activity while 18 states had regional influenza activity in the past week, and 443 people had died of influenza and pneumonia-associated complications in the same week, bringing the death toll to 1,379 since the beginning of September. All these key figures indicate that influenza activity -- 99 percent of all subtyped influenza A viruses being reported to the CDC last week were the new A(H1N1) virus -- has remained elevated in the United States and the second wave of the pandemic of A(H1N1) flu is imminent. "This is uncharted territory for an influenza season, we've already had many millions of cases, and we will have many millions of cases more," Frieden told members of Congress on September 29. "Over the next several weeks, there will be some vaccine in the system, but there will also be some roughness as it gets distributed." Each year, influenza kills about 36,000 people around the country. The majority of deaths are in people older than age 80, according to the CDC. In contrast, the A(H1N1) flu attacks children hardest, while older people have some immunity, probably from exposure early in life to a virus that was genetically similar to the new A(H1N1), according to the National Institutes of Health, which conducted the vaccine tests. However, most American adults have to wait for massive A(H1N1) flu immunizations in the middle of the month when more vaccination programs are set to start up across the country over the next couple of weeks. Tough world scenario The number of A(H1N1) flu cases worldwide has jumped by at least 24,000 in two weeks to exceed 343,000, while deaths from the A(H1N1) virus edged up to more than 4,100, according to a Monday report from US health agencies. The World Health Organization (WHO) regions have reported over 343,298 laboratory-confirmed cases of 2009 H1N1 with at least 4, 108 deaths, which is an increase of at least 24,373 cases and 191 deaths since September 20, the CDC said. The sharp increase in the number of cases was only "the tip of the A(H1N1) pandemic iceberg," as many countries focus surveillance and laboratory testing only on people with severe illness, the CDC added.
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