First doses of H1N1 vaccine on the way
First doses of H1N1 vaccine on the way
By MARVIN BAKER
EDITOR
The first doses of H1N1 vaccine should be arriving in northwestern North Dakota within the next few days, however, priority groups will be the first to get the shots, according to Daphne Clark, public information officer for the Upper Missouri District Health Unit in Williston.
“We plan on vaccinating in our four county offices with the small quantities that will be coming in to start with,” Clark said. “Private clinics and pharmacies have also ordered.”
Clark added dates and times of local clinics to be giving the shots have yet to be decided.
She said the health industry is still unclear on how severe H1N1 could be this flu season. At the present time, Clark said it appears that H1N1 will be about as severe as seasonal flu, but everyone must keep in mind that seasonal flu kills 36,000 people in the United States every year.
On Monday, A Canadian study determined that 67 percent of the people who died or were sent to hospital with swine flu in the spring were female, about 30 percent of patients had a major underlying medical condition such as congestive heart failure, chronic renal disease and liver disease and nearly 23 percent of the patients had asthma, and 33 percent were obese.
That study was commissioned at the Health Sciences Center in Winnipeg.
Here in the United States, there’s been a lot of media coverage from a lot of angles and many people have begun tuning it out. Others believe the seriousness of this flu that could be as deadly as the flu that hit the United States in 1918. Regardless of opinion, Clark said it is important to take necessary precautions to be ready to fight it off.
