By Lisa Trigg
TERRE HAUTE — Inhalable mist or injection?
Those are the two delivery methods for the H1N1 vaccine now being offered by the Vigo County Health Department during its targeted shot clinics.
Shane Cantwell, a firefighter with the Shepardsville Volunteer Fire Department, chose to inhale a dose Thursday afternoon. It was the first time he has received a flu vaccination in 10 years, he said, and he is taking the H1N1 threat seriously.
“You don’t know who you’re going to run into,” said Cantwell, who is also a first responder. “I have a two-year-old daughter at home. I don’t want to bring anything home to her.”
As of early Thursday afternoon, just 75 doses of the H1N1 vaccine had been administered to first responders and emergency workers at the county health clinic. The number soon rose as a group of IU medical students arrived at the county clinic to be vaccinated.
“We’ll get some clinical experience,” Charlie Cochran explained in anticipation of a local H1N1 outbreak, “so that’s why we are getting the shots.”
Emergency workers and first responders are the target group selected to receive the first round the vaccine because those professionals will be taking care of everyone else if there is an outbreak. But the amount of vaccine currently available in Vigo County in no way meets the anticipated need.
“We have a very limited amount of the vaccine,” said health educator Megan Bland of the health department, “and it is trickling in, which is making it difficult for us to be able to push it out to the target groups.”
Those target groups include pregnant women, caregivers and parents of children age 0 to 6 months, individuals age 6 months to 24 years, and individuals age 24 to 65 with compromised immune systems. In 6 to 8 weeks, the vaccine will be made available to the general public.
Indiana has received less than one-third of the doses ordered to combat H1N1, state health commissioner Judy Monroe said Thursday, and that is affecting local immunization efforts across the state.
Delays in vaccine production have caused the shortfall in doses.
“You can’t speed up the process of manufacturing the vaccine,” Monroe said during a media conference, explaining that the virus is not replicating in eggs to the degree expected.
The state has ordered 929,745 doses, she said, but has received only 278,000 doses so far.
What has been received has been evenly distributed throughout the state according to population, she said, calling the delay in the distribution “frustrating” and “out of human control.”
Pam Pontones, acting state epidemiologist, said 98 percent of specimens testing positive for influenza A have been due to H1N1.
Many health care providers use the rapid or in-office tests to check for influenza A, she said, so if a person tests positive, there is a 98 percent likelihood that person has H1N1.
At this point of the year, health facilities reporting influenza-like illness have “considerably surpassed the seasonal peak” of last year’s flu season, Monroe said.
Mid-October is not typically the peak for flu season.
Assistant commissioner Jim Howell encouraged the public to still get the seasonal flu shots, because the standard flu season in Indiana will not peak until January or February.
However, Vigo County’s supply of the regular flu vaccine already has been exhausted, and another batch is not expected to arrive until late November or early December.
To help administer the shots, the county health department has contracted with Preferred Home Healthcare to staff the shot clinics.
The state health department is also deploying “strike teams” of nurses to counties with fewer health care worker to help get the general population vaccinated.
The incidences of H1N1 have increased mostly in the northern two-thirds of the state, and as of this week, 27 schools in the state have reported 20 percent or higher absenteeism.
It is not a requirement for schools to close at any particular threshold. Such decisions are left up to local school districts, Monroe said. But school districts must report absenteeism of 20 percent or higher to a local health department, which forwards that information to the state.
Many school districts are planning mass shot clinics for students and staff, she said, and that is a good plan. But the shortage of vaccine has delayed many of those clinics.
One of the greatest challenges with the H1N1 pandemic, Dr. Monroe said, is that information changes, so the public should remain vigilant for updates.
“You can’t rely on information from a couple of weeks ago,” she said.
Assistant commissioner Howell encouraged the public to get vaccinated as soon as the drug is available to build resistance to future outbreaks.
“The virus is likely to stay in the community for several years, so it’s good to get a shot as soon as you can,” Howell said.
For more information on H1N1, the public can visit the State Department of Health Web site at www.in.gov/dhs or visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site at www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu.
Lisa Trigg can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or lisa.trigg@tribstar.com.
