Swine flu vaccine available for teachers (10/09)

By Kimberly Wong

Oct. 16, 2009

A new influenza vaccine will be available to people, hopefully by the end of November: the H1N1 virus vaccine.

The H1N1 vaccine was targeted toward pregnant women, people from age 6 months to 24 years, persons who live with or care for infants less than 6 months of age and health care & emergency medical services personnel with direct patient contact, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health. The vaccine comes in either a nasal spray vaccine or a vaccination shot.

Initially, the H1N1 swine flu vaccine was expected to be widely available by the millions at mass vaccination clinics beginning the week of Oct. 26; however, the vaccine will now be distributed directly to providers who have high-risk patients and who have registered on CalPanFlu.org, according to the SFDPH. Some of the supply will be allocated to high-risk homeless patients whose regular provider is not receiving the vaccine, to be provided through community-based clinics within 48 hours of vaccine arrival.

According to the SFDPH, this change in distribution is necessary due to the uncertainty about the arrival date of the H1N1 vaccine. This approach will allow the city to respond more quickly when the vaccine arrives and have the vaccine be available to the community 48 hours after receipt.

San Francisco Unified District’s Student Support Services will not allow school nurses to provide either flu shot to students, but will provide them to teachers because they want to promote students’ connection to their pediatricians and healthcare providers, according to nurse Maryann Rainey. “Although I can give out neither the seasonal flu shot nor the H1N1 vaccination to students, I still highly recommend that they get it from their personal doctor or a free public clinic,” Rainey said.

People can check with their health care provider about getting access to the vaccine. The cost will be reasonable for those who want the vaccine. A possible related expenditure is a $25 charge for administrating the vaccine, but the vaccine itself is free, according to Rainey.

Just as other health care providers will provide their patients with access to the vaccination, Kaiser announced that it will also receive the H1N1 vaccine for its members at the same time as the SFDPH does, but will have their own vaccination protocols and costs, according to the SFDPH.

However, there is a greater cost than money for not getting the vaccine. Death, while extremely rare, is possible, as with all types of flu. According to SFGate.com, there have already been nine deaths in the United States due to the H1N1 virus; one-third of them being pediatric deaths. But after early fears of a pandemic, people are now concerned about the illness. “Most young people have not been exposed to the components, the antigens in the H1N1 virus,” Rainey said, “Therefore, [they] are susceptible to this illness for not having developed immunity to an antigen their bodies have not recognized before.”

The H1N1 virus, according to science department head Dacotah Swett, is harmful to humans because “we do not have a lot of immunity to it, even though usually, we can develop immunities against other types of flu.”

Rainey recommends that everyone can reduce their risk of getting the flu by washing their hands with soap and water, not touching their eyes, nose and mouth and coughing and sneezing into their arms instead of directly onto their hands. If, unfortunately, someone does catch the virus, then he or she should stay at home to prevent spreading the virus to others to recover.

Some also have already been exposed to the virus. Out of 2,662 Lowell students, sophomore Reilly Fitzpatrick was one of the unfortunate few who caught the virus from her friends while spending a weekend together. Fitzpatrick said, “I first had a sore throat, then a slight fever of about 100. The next day, I had a 104 fever, body aches and a sore throat. The 104 fever lasted only one day and then it dropped back down to 100. I was better in about three days when my fever started going down because I drank lots of liquids and lay in bed the whole weekend. I only missed one day of school so it worked out well.”

The flu vaccination distribution may be changed again; people can either keep up with the news or check back with Rainey or the SFDPH for more updates. Rainey can be reached at the Wellness Center on the first floor of the school from Monday to Friday, excluding Tuesday.