Little about swine flu is routine, particularly when it comes to vaccines. This year, unlike in previous flu seasons, people older than 65 will be turned away from vaccination clinics.
Historically, elderly people have been encouraged to get vaccinated early in the flu season because they’re at greatest risk. This year, they’ll be told the exact opposite.
According to Michele Mickiewicz, a representative for the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, the H1N1 vaccine will be distributed in phases to public health-care providers beginning in mid- to late October.
“There’s not enough for everyone at once, so we’re going to have to prioritize [depending on susceptibility],” Mickiewicz said.
When it comes to swine flu, the groups getting first priority will include children 6 months to 4 years old, pregnant women, and caretakers of infants younger than 6 months. Health-care workers and people with chronic illnesses will also be of high priority.
According to fact sheets from the California Department of Public Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people older than 65 aren’t recommended to receive vaccinations.
“Based on the data collected from last year’s H1N1 outbreak, less than 10 percent of the serious cases—which lead to hospitalization or even death—were in people over 65 years old,” Mickiewicz said.
After the first supplies are dispensed and new batches are shipped to local health officials, people who weren’t originally given priority will be able to receive a vaccination.
There were 1,633 total hospitalizations, ICU cases, and deaths attributed to swine flu in California as of Sept. 2, according to the state department of health. Data indicate the age group most at risk is between 5 and 18 years old, followed by 19 to 24.
Why aren’t older people as susceptible to this particular virus? The answer is interesting. According to Penny Borenstein, a public health administrator in San Luis Obispo County, the swine flu virus we know today—the H1N1 influenza, technically—bears some relation to a strain of flu virus that caused a pandemic in 1957, as well as the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed about 50 million people worldwide, according to the CDC.
In other words, “The older the person living today, the greater the likelihood that the person at some time between 1918 and 1957 contracted the H1N1 virus circulated in that era,” Borenstein said.
Anyone who contracted those viruses has accumulated some natural defenses to the swine flu strain. Borenstein stressed that the age-related restrictions that apply to swine flu vaccinations don’t apply to regular seasonal flu vaccinations.
With that in mind, Santa Barbara County Public Health Department’s Mickiewicz said it’s important people keep the matter in
perspective.
“It’s likely that we’re going to see a high number of people get sick with the flu—and it will probably be swine flu,” Mickiewicz said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean the person is going to need to be hospitalized. … It’s just another kind of flu.
“Most people will be able to recover at home without medical attention,” she explained. “It’s if they get those certain symptoms, the warning signs—like labored breathing—that they should be concerned.”
Both Mickiewicz and Borenstein said local health-care providers and other officials have been meeting to spread the word and hopefully prevent any chaos at the clinics or emergency rooms.
Still, some people, including health-care providers, remain skeptical.
Registered Nurse Charletha Anderson has been working with elderly people at the Santa Maria Wisdom Center and other health-care facilities for decades. While working on “the frontline,” as she called it, Anderson said she’s learned a lot about how the flu can impact older populations.
“They still need to do more research on how it affects elderly people,” she said. “The elderly are more likely to catch the flu because they’re around their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I see all the time how sick they can get.”
Anderson said she plans to treat H1N1 just like any other flu virus, by educating people about it and encouraging healthy habits, such as hand washing.
Wisdom Center regular Richard Stowell said he knows he’s in good hands. While finishing his lunch, he recalled the first time he got a flu shot.
“It must have been some time back in the ’60s or ’70s—I think I was about 19 or 20 years old—and it was just when they first started giving out flu shots,” Stowell said. “And I think they were calling it the swine flu back then, too.”
When asked if he was worried about contracting swine flu, Stowell deadpanned: “No. I haven’t been around any pigs.”
He then added: “No, I’m not worried. No one’s going to live forever.”
Colin Rigley is a staff writer for New Times, the Sun’s sister paper in SLO. Contact him at crigley@newtimesslo.com. Sun News Editor Amy Asman contributed to this story. Contact her at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 17-24, 2009.