PHD readies for H1N1 flu

SANDPOINT — The Panhandle Health District is firming up plans to distribute and administer swine flu vaccine in Idaho’s five northern counties this fall.

The health district expects to begin receiving shipments of the H1N1 vaccine next month and establishing voluntary vaccination clinics in November, said Dale Peck, director of environmental response and technology for PHD.

Peck said the district plans to receive a total of 127,000 doses by January.

“I think we’re in as good a shape as anywhere in the country,” Peck said.

The vaccine will be distributed to private health care providers and it will also be available for free to kids and adults at voluntary vaccination clinics.

Peck said the district is working with area schools to conduct vaccinations and is forecasting a 40- to 50-percent take rate. There are also plans to hold voluntary vaccination clinics at Sandpoint and Priest River middle schools for the general public.

The clinics would initially address those most vulnerable to complications from H1N1 influenza — pregnant women, children and young people up to 24 years old and non-elderly adults with chronic health ailments such as diabetes and asthma. They would also square away caregivers and health care workers.

Subsequent clinics would be open to a wider audience, Peck said.

Based on the availability of vaccine supplies, the health district expects to conduct the mass clinics in early November.

Peck briefed county commissioners, health care providers and emergency workers on the district’s plans on Tuesday. Commissioners greeted the H1N1 campaign with a distinct dose of skepticism.

“I’m concerned we’re going overboard too fast, too quick,” said Commission Chairman Joe Young, noting that the county passed on a series of West Nile virus countermeasures, including mosquito spraying, without ill effect.

Evolving guidelines for administering the H1N1 vaccine led Commissioner Cornel Rasor to question whether proper clinical trials were done in the haste to manufacture the product.

“I’m a little concerned these new revelations come to light in the clinical trials,” he said.

Peck called the guideline shifts “minor,” explaining that one such adjustment involved a recommendation that kids age 10 or younger receive two doses over time. That recommendation supplanted one which called for kids nine and younger receive two doses, he said.

Peck also addressed perceptions that creation of the H1N1 vaccine was a radical departure from the processes used to develop vaccines currently used to ward off strains of seasonal influenza.

“It’s not. It’s the same egg-based process that’s been used for 20 years,” he said.

Although the general population’s risk of death from H1N1 complications is not terribly high, nobody is naturally immune to the virus, said Peck. He added that a key goal in the campaign is to mitigate the potential impacts H1N1 could have on the community.

H1N1 influenza, coupled with seasonal flu outbreaks, has the potential to overload the local health care system, sideline scores of workers in the public and private sectors, and interrupt schooling, according to the health district.

“It has a compounding effect,” Peck said.

More information on H1N1 can be found on the Web (www.phd1.idaho.gov).