| | |  Health & Beauty | August 2009 
US Plans Nationwide Campaign to Erase Public Fears About Vaccine Dangers
 Erin Allday - SF Chronicle
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August 27, 2009
 |  | Federal officials estimated that the swine flu could infect 60 million to 120 million people in the United States this fall and winter, and result in up to 1.8 million people being hospitalized and as many as 90,000 dying. |  | | |
Federal authorities plan to initiate a nationwide campaign in the coming weeks to persuade Americans to get the swine flu vaccine and to erase any public skepticism about the flu's danger and the safety of immunizations.
Even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has manufacturers working overtime to produce a vaccine for the swine flu by mid-October, government officials are concerned that demand for immunization will not be high. In particular, parents participating in focus groups this summer expressed concern that ramping up vaccine production would make it less safe than the seasonal flu vaccine.
Only about 1 in 3 Americans gets the seasonal flu shot, but some of the groups with the lowest rates of immunization have the highest risk of becoming infected with the swine flu. Less than 25 percent of children under age 2 get the seasonal flu vaccine, for example, and rates are even lower for school-aged children.
"Many parents (in focus groups) expressed a lot of concerns about 2009 H1N1 vaccine. Those concerns were centered around the fact that it was new and it was being developed quickly," said Kris Sheedy, a communications director with the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, during a meeting with reporters Tuesday at the CDC. "There were comments such as 'this is new and I don't want my child to be a guinea pig.' "
She added that people in focus groups mostly viewed the swine flu as a "mild disease," which might make them reluctant to be vaccinated.
Cause of concern
Since it first emerged last spring, the swine flu, a form of influenza Type A, subtype H1N1, has been no more dangerous than seasonal influenza. But most people have no natural immunity to the virus, and federal public health officials worry about the consequences if it is allowed to spread unchecked.
On Monday, federal officials estimated that the swine flu could infect 60 million to 120 million people in the United States this fall and winter, and result in up to 1.8 million people being hospitalized and as many as 90,000 dying.
In their campaign to raise awareness, public health officials on the local and national levels will focus on high-risk populations - including children, pregnant women and adults with underlying health problems. Regional health departments will set up clinics at schools and other public places to distribute the vaccine.
The federal government will spend about $16 million on outreach to convince people of the need to get the swine flu vaccine.
CDC officials are expecting about 45 million doses of vaccine to be available by mid-October, with another 20 million doses delivered every week through the rest of the year. That's not nearly enough to cover the entire U.S. population, but officials said that won't be necessary; the real battle probably will be convincing people in the high-risk groups to get the vaccine.
Safety assurances
The swine flu vaccine should be just as safe as the seasonal flu shot, CDC officials said. The new vaccine is being manufactured using the same process as the seasonal vaccine, but with a different strain of influenza - which is what happens every year when a new vaccine is made in accordance with whatever strain is expected to be circulating in the coming flu season.
So far, clinical trials have shown the swine flu vaccine to be safe, but the CDC will be monitoring immunizations throughout the season. If there are side effects, CDC officials said, they'll probably be rare and won't show up until hundreds of thousands of people have been vaccinated. If serious side effects appear during clinical trials, the vaccine program will be halted immediately.
"We certainly feel that, from everything we've seen, the risks associated with the illness are much higher than the risk associated with the vaccine," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "If there are rare, severe adverse events, it will only be after wide-scale use that we'll see them."
Email Erin Allday at eallday(at)sfchronicle.com. |
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