Published: November 20, 2009 09:29 am      

First wave of H1N1 may be over

CLINTON — The worst of Clinton County’s first wave of HINI cases appears to be over, but state health authorities are saying there may be a second wave, Michelle Cullen, VNA’s community health manager, told members of the Clinton County Emergency Planning and Preparedness group this week.

“And the concern is that the second wave may come when we’re getting a wave of the seasonal flu,” she added.

The good news is, “We’ll have a lot of people vaccinated with the HINI vaccine by that time,” Cullen said. “Our clinics have been running anywhere from 350 to 500 people.

“We started out with pregnant women, anybody 6 months to 64 years of age with a chronic illness, then health care workers, child care providers, law enforcement, first responders and teachers. I think we have now completed all the first responders and health care workers, but if anybody knows of pregnant women who did not receive the vaccine, please call our office. We definitely do want those women to get the vaccine.”

To contact Cullen, call 244-4929.

Evening clinics are held twice a week, alternating in Clinton and DeWitt, by appointment only.

“Because of the amount of vaccine we’ve gotten, we don’t want people to stand in line for an hour and then we say, ‘Sorry, the vaccine’s gone,’” Cullen said. “For the last three clinics we did have law enforcement present because we were getting calls: ‘Why can’t I get it?’ It was for our own safety. Sometimes those over 64 can’t understand why they’re not included. But statistics show that this virus is just not hitting that group.

“If you remember the Asian flu and other seasonal flu seasons when we preached and preached for older people to get the vaccine. Now they do have some immunity from that.”

Cullen quoted current HINI data from the Centers for Disease Control. In the United States from April to October:

• Cases: Ages 0-17, 8 million; ages 18-64, 12 million; ages 65 and older, 2 million.

• Hospitalizations: Ages 0-17, 36,000; ages 18-64, 53,000; ages 65 and older, 9,000.

• Deaths: Ages 0-17, 540; ages 18-64, 2,920; ages 65 and older, 420.

“That’s pretty low when you consider that the traditional seasonal flu usually causes about 36,000 deaths.”

Cullen said the latest numbers for Iowa lists 397 cases through the end of September, with 19 deaths, but she pointed out it takes two to three weeks to confirm that an illness is HINI.