H1N1 Continues to Affect the Young
The availability of H1N1 vaccine is still less than what manufacturers had predicted and what federal health officials had wanted. Still, the 38 million doses currently ready for states to order is 11 million more than what was available a week ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The pace of our progress is picking up,” said Rear Adm. Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Schuchat stopped short of predicting when the supply of vaccine would be enough to become readily available to the general public.
States, and in some cases municipalities, are responsible for determining how best to distribute limited supplies. In most areas, vaccinations are directed toward those at highest risk of spreading the disease or suffering the worst consequences.
Children remain among the groups most vulnerable. The virus is now blamed for 129 pediatric deaths in the U.S. Approximately two-thirds of these children had underlying neurological or respiratory conditions, Schuchat said.
According to the CDC, influenza activity is “widespread” in 48 states, with 7.7 percent of doctor’s office visits from patients reporting flu-like symptoms. That’s down slightly from last week’s figure of 8 percent. However, federal health officials say it’s too early to say whether H1N1 activity has peaked.
“Flu season can last until May,” Schuchat sait. “So, we really don’t know what trajectory we’ll see with this virus or with the flu season in general.”
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Tags: Anne Schuchat, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, H1N1, influenza, vaccination, vaccine, virus
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Jonathan Serrie is an Atlanta-based correspondent for FNC. He was
stationed in Macedonia during Operation Allied Force and in Uzbekistan
during Operation Enduring Freedom. 
Would be nice if the companies that got the vaccine for the flu, would pay for the funerals of those high risk patients who die because of the shortage. These are the same people who can least likely afford to bury some one. They are the same people who are struggling to make ends meet because the interest rates are eatting up what income they may have had to go to the doctor with, not to mention they are the same tax payers that bailed out the fat cats so they can get their big bonuses this year…….can we say Goldman AIG Citibank……no wonder why americans are becoming ashamed to be american.
My problem with the whole H1N1 epidemic is that you here so many different opinions about the virus, sometimes it’s hard to determine what to be believe and what not to believe. As a parent of 4 with 2 of them under 3, I worry about if my kids will be able to be vaccinated! My doctor told me that they haven’t even recieved any of the vaccines, so how will the everyday middle class working family know if their families will be able to recieve the vaccines!
Jonathan Serrie, what do you know about the CDC changing the reporting requirements for the states of H1N1 effective August 30, 2009? They are to include “pneumonia and influenza syndrome” cases. The Fluview report dated 10/30 was pulled by the CDC and they are not making the syndromic cases public. As of 10/30, the total lab confirmed and syndromic cases US death count was 3,952 from August 30, to October 30, 2009. This was an increase in deaths of 1,125 from the 10/23 report! They are now only reporting lab confirmed cases which they admit are a gross understatement of the hospitalizations and deaths.
Under “Monitoring Influenza Activity, Including 2009 H1N1″ the CDC states “The reason for this change in public reporting is that the interpretation of syndromic data…relative to laboratory-confirmed data has been challenging.” (updated Nov 6)
Try asking Thomas Frieden why this is information is being withheld from the public.