Susceptible to Swine Flu but Skipping Inoculations
The age group most likely to become infected with swine flu — students from elementary and high school — is the group that did the worst in having seasonal flu shots last year, according to data released Thursday by federal health officials.
Only about 21 percent of children ages 5 to 17 received flu shots last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 41 percent of infants, 32 percent of adults at risk of complications and 67 percent of the elderly.
But that is expected to change this year, said Gary L. Euler, the centers epidemiologist who prepared the report.
The data came from a telephone survey of 414,000 households.
Last year was the first in which that federal officials had recommended that everyone ages 5 to 17 receive flu shots, and that recommendation was made only after doctors had ordered their fall shipments of flu shots, so vaccine ran short.
“Also, over the years, it takes a while for vaccination rates to increase,” Dr. Euler said.
This year, with worries about swine flu, preliminary data from insurance companies suggests that many more Americans are asking for flu shots, he added.
“We’re three weeks ahead of schedule,” Dr. Euler said, meaning that as many people had shots by the end of September as would have by the third week of October in a normal year.
Also on Thursday, scientists in Australia and New Zealand said the swine flu had hit hardest at pregnant women, obese people, aborigines and Maoris during the winter flu season in their countries. American scientists studying people hospitalized with swine flu before summer began reached similar conclusions about the dangers of pregnancy and obesity.
The Southern Hemisphere study was of 722 intensive-care patients. Both countries studied have modern hospitals, and the results were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine to help the United States and other wealthy Northern Hemisphere countries respond to the surge in critical cases they expect as winter begins here.
Patients typically spent about a week in intensive care before recovering or dying; 14 percent of the patients whose outcomes were known when the study ended had died.
While school-age children tend to spread the disease, those most at risk of dying of it were infants and adults ages 25 to 64.
Pregnant women were nine times more likely to be in intensive care, the study found. People who were obese or morbidly obese were five times as likely, and asthmatics were more than twice as likely.
A second study published by the New England Journal involved 272 patients hospitalized in the United States between the pandemic’s emergence in April and its temporary subsidence as warm weather began in June. It found that quick use of antiviral drugs by hospitals probably saved lives.
That was true even though earlier studies showed Tamiflu is best used during the first 48 hours of a flu, while many patients have been sick for days by the time they are hospitalized.
One-quarter of the hospitalized patients had been young and healthy; the rest had well-known risks like pregnancy, asthma, diabetes and heart, lung and neurological diseases. Seven percent of the patients died, all after mechanical ventilation in intensive care. Of the dead, about one-third had no underlying condition.
Of the patients for whom data was available, 45 percent were obese.
Also on Thursday, the National Institutes of Health awarded $60 million in grants to discover new adjuvants, immune boosters that can be added to vaccines to make them go further.
The only adjuvant approved for use in the United States is alum, an aluminum salt, in use for decades.
Adjuvants are controversial for several reasons. Although they can make very small doses of vaccine effective, scientists do not know why they work.
The more vigorous immune reactions they provoke include very sore arms and higher fevers, and their critics blame them for more severe side effects, though studies suggesting that are contested.
The grants will go to five American universities or medical schools and to a subsidiary of the GlaxoSmithKline corporation.
The age group most likely to become infected with swine flu — students from elementary and high school — is the group that did the worst in having seasonal flu shots last year, according to data released Thursday by federal health officials.
Only about 21 percent of children ages 5 to 17 received flu shots last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 41 percent of infants, 32 percent of adults at risk of complications and 67 percent of the elderly.
But that is expected to change this year, said Gary L. Euler, the centers epidemiologist who prepared the report.
The data came from a telephone survey of 414,000 households.
Last year was the first in which that federal officials had recommended that everyone ages 5 to 17 receive flu shots, and that recommendation was made only after doctors had ordered their fall shipments of flu shots, so vaccine ran short.
“Also, over the years, it takes a while for vaccination rates to increase,” Dr. Euler said.
This year, with worries about swine flu, preliminary data from insurance companies suggests that many more Americans are asking for flu shots, he added.
“We’re three weeks ahead of schedule,” Dr. Euler said, meaning that as many people had shots by the end of September as would have by the third week of October in a normal year.
Also on Thursday, scientists in Australia and New Zealand said the swine flu had hit hardest at pregnant women, obese people, aborigines and Maoris during the winter flu season in their countries. American scientists studying people hospitalized with swine flu before summer began reached similar conclusions about the dangers of pregnancy and obesity.
The Southern Hemisphere study was of 722 intensive-care patients. Both countries studied have modern hospitals, and the results were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine to help the United States and other wealthy Northern Hemisphere countries respond to the surge in critical cases they expect as winter begins here.
Patients typically spent about a week in intensive care before recovering or dying; 14 percent of the patients whose outcomes were known when the study ended had died.
While school-age children tend to spread the disease, those most at risk of dying of it were infants and adults ages 25 to 64.
Pregnant women were nine times more likely to be in intensive care, the study found. People who were obese or morbidly obese were five times as likely, and asthmatics were more than twice as likely.
A second study published by the New England Journal involved 272 patients hospitalized in the United States between the pandemic’s emergence in April and its temporary subsidence as warm weather began in June. It found that quick use of antiviral drugs by hospitals probably saved lives.
That was true even though earlier studies showed Tamiflu is best used during the first 48 hours of a flu, while many patients have been sick for days by the time they are hospitalized.
One-quarter of the hospitalized patients had been young and healthy; the rest had well-known risks like pregnancy, asthma, diabetes and heart, lung and neurological diseases. Seven percent of the patients died, all after mechanical ventilation in intensive care. Of the dead, about one-third had no underlying condition.
Of the patients for whom data was available, 45 percent were obese.
Also on Thursday, the National Institutes of Health awarded $60 million in grants to discover new adjuvants, immune boosters that can be added to vaccines to make them go further.
The only adjuvant approved for use in the United States is alum, an aluminum salt, in use for decades.
Adjuvants are controversial for several reasons. Although they can make very small doses of vaccine effective, scientists do not know why they work.
The more vigorous immune reactions they provoke include very sore arms and higher fevers, and their critics blame them for more severe side effects, though studies suggesting that are contested.
The grants will go to five American universities or medical schools and to a subsidiary of the GlaxoSmithKline corporation.
Source: New York Times
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