subject: State to offer H1N1 shots to all [print this page] Author: Health Insurance Author: Health Insurance
Health officials statewide soon will offer free H1N1 vaccine to all residents possibly in the next two weeks reversing a national trend of giving it only to those deemed at high risk of contracting the virus.
We really want to vaccinate as many people as possible, Eden Wells, a medical epidemiologist with the Michigan Department of Community Health, said Monday. We do know there are five more months of influenza season. Whatever vaccine we get in, we want to get out.
Opening it up to everyone will be good for Michigan residents since so many people are out of work, said unemployed Detroit resident Michael Stephens. Without health insurance, its a big deal if you get sick, said Stephens, 29.
The vaccine is free because the federal government is paying for it, but private health providers may charge an administration fee.
The decision to make the vaccine available to everyone in the near future comes as five more deaths have been linked to swine flu in Michigan since last week, increasing the state death toll to 59 since April. The ages of the most recent Michigan deaths ranged from 23-59, and all had underlying health issues.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations associated with flu have climbed to 1,660 since September, and cases of flu-like illness reported to the state from Nov. 15-21 totaled 25,074.
Michigan health departments, physicians and hospitals began offering the H1N1 vaccine in October but the national delay in its production led the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend that shots be offered only to five priority groups: pregnant women, those ages 6 months to 24 years, caregivers of infants younger than 6 months, emergency and health care workers, and people ages 25-64 with underlying health conditions.
As H1N1-linked cases and deaths spiked, schools closed and hospitals limited visitors to adults in recent weeks, residents began clamoring to get the vaccine. They reported that their doctors didnt have the vaccine or had run out.
Some local health departments faced thousands of people waiting in line for hours at mass vaccine clinics targeted at people in the high-risk groups.
Other Michigan health departments, and those nationwide, have faced such severe shortages they have offered the vaccine only to subsets of the priority group. Its unclear how many health departments in Michigan narrowed the priority groups at their clinics in recent weeks. But beginning today, the states 45 health departments will no longer do so.
Since it received the vaccine, Macomb County has held nearly a dozen clinics. Of those, one offered the vaccine only to pregnant women and eligible household members; two clinics were held for only health care workers and volunteers.
We saw them (the priority populations) as a key audience that needed to get the vaccine, said Dan Artman, spokesman for the Macomb County Health Department.
Before the arrival of the vaccine, the CDC said Michigan would have 1.5 million doses by mid-October. Those supplies trickled in, but the CDC now has cleared the state to get 2.2 million doses. Of those, about 1.8 million have arrived.
For now, the vaccine is available only to priority groups, which is about half of the states 10 million residents.
Theoretically, a lot more people should be vaccinated, said Bob Swanson, state director of immunization. But local health departments have been reporting a slowdown at clinics.
Wed like to encourage more people to be vaccinated, said Swanson, stressing that people most at risk should try to get the vaccine.
The H1N1 vaccine will be available to all residents once state officials review vaccination data and local health officials can assure (the state) that these high-risk groups have had an adequate chance to be vaccinated, Wells said.
That could be as soon as the next two weeks, Wells said, or possibly by the end of the year.
The H1N1 vaccine will be available to everyone just as seasonal flu season is expected to peak, traditionally in February for Michigan.
Overall, the addition of the H1N1 flu strain has spiked the number of cases this year, unlike years past. Nearly 625,000 Michigan residents have reported flu-like illnesses since mid-November a 35 percent increase over the 416,972 reported cases in 2008 and 404,476 cases in 2007.About the Author:
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