About the swine flu, here in the County & on our island…

I’d have to say this swine flu business got my attention about three weeks ago when my sister-in-law told me that my five-year-old niece had contracted swine flu, but got treatment in time & everything worked out fine. That was in Alabama, but when I checked in with my son in college in Colorado, he said he knew a couple of people who missed classes with it, too.

What once was in the news is now a reality, around us….

So, to get you started thinking about this, here’s the latest bulletin from the San Juan County website, along with the news that the vaccines have started arriving on the island.

I checked in with the County’s website about the expected spread of the flu in the islands, and pulled together a few notes after talking to a few people:

As a brief synopsis, we have been having sporadic cases of influenza like illness (ILI) since April 2009 and all summer in the camps.  The Health Department expects to see a lot more cases as the fall progresses and especially over the next 5 to 8 weeks.

As all children and young adults do not have immunity to this bug (novel H1N1 Influenza), they are more likely to get sick and pass it on to others in their families, schools, social groups.  The close quarters of kids in school are a great incubator for illnesses.  Influenza is very contagious and although some people can have milder illnesses, some kids or people have serious outcomes.

This is particularly true for pregnant women and kids with asthma. Did you know that 5 to 8 % of the population has asthma?  Also, kids who are sick are more likely to infect four other people whereas an adult who is sick is most likely to infect two other people; as you extrapolate these numbers out, it does not take long to have an outbreak!

Hence the Health Department has been trying to do outreach to everyone including sick kids in school to attempt to decrease the spread of influenza in our community.  The longer we can delay the spread of influenza, the less impact it will have in our community, less people sick, less stress on our medical clinics, and county infrastructure.

So it is very important that everyone follow the mantra:

Cover their coughs,
Wash their hands, and
Stay home when they are sick.

Making a plan about regarding work or day care needs if you or child is sick needs to be thought out.

The Health Department has distributed its first shipment of novel H1N1 live attenuated intranasal vaccine. It will be prioritized for the highest risk groups first and as those needs are met expanded out to the next tier.  The first tier will be pregnant women, caregivers of children less than 6 months, health care workers and emergency services workers. People can choose to see their health care provider or call San Juan County Health & Community Services for a vaccination appointment.

When the health department receives its next shipment of vaccine it will be offered to any child 6 months up to 5 years and any child 5 to 24 years old with asthma or diabetes or another chronic illness, along with the previous tier.  As vaccine arrives every week, the tiers will be broadened.

The Department will quickly move to vaccinate all kids up to 24 years of age and any adults 24 to 64 with chronic illnesses and then the remaining people who want to be vaccinated.

People over 65 are protected by their age. The epidemiology shows seniors to have less incidence of illness, so age has some benefits.  The vaccine is VOLUNTARY.

Overcoming this influenza will take everyone’s help in taking care of themselves and their loved ones.  The more information we all can get out to each other for us to make educated decisions, the better.  People will protect themselves in different ways but the less a person spreads the illness to others the less impact influenza will have on our community.

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