FLU UPDATE JANUARY 5, 2010
We currently have ample stock of the H1N1 vaccine for ages 6 months and above.
We are also now able to schedule appointments for the second dose of the H1N1 vaccine for children under 10 years of age who received the first dose of H1N1 vaccine at least 21 days ago.
Please call our office if you wish to schedule an appointment for this vaccine.
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H1N1 .25ML RECALL UPDATE
DECEMBER 18, 2009
As many of you have heard, we received a notice that a portion of H1N1 injectable vaccine for children under 3 years of age was recalled. A few lots of this type of vaccine were found to have lost potency. Although the potency was only slightly below the specified potency, it was recalled.
The potency was only slightly below that specified by the CDC and will probably work as well as or nearly as well as the full potency vaccine. The CDC does not recommend repeating the dose, but does recommend that these children receive their second dose of H1N1 vaccine at least 3 weeks after the first. This will be somewhat problematic as we still don't have enough vaccine for everyone to receive their first dose, but we are slowly receiving more doses.
Only a very small portion of our patients received the recalled vaccine. We are going through our records to determine which patients have received the recalled vaccine and we are contacting those patients. If you don't hear from us by early next week and your under age 3 child received the H1N1 injection in our office after December 3, 2009, please call us to confirm that he or she did or did not receive the lower potency vaccine. We will try to give priority for second doses to those who received the lower potency vaccine, especially those with chronic disease.
CLICK HERE FOR THE CDC'S RECALL NOTICE
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FLU UPDATE DECEMBER 14, 2009
We have recently received a shipment of H1N1 injectable vaccine for children over 4 years of age and a shipment of H1N1 nasal mist for healthy children 2 and above. We have a small amount of H1N1 injectable vaccine for children less than 3 years of age. We are hoping to receive doses of H1N1 vaccine for children 3 and over in the immediate future.
The staff is working to create appointment times to administer flu vaccinations. This is going to be challenging for patients and staff alike because we are in the midst of our winter sick season. Please bear with us. Members of our staff have agreed to work overtime to give more vaccine, but we cannot immunize everyone as quickly as you or we would like. We still must be able to see those patients that are sick and to receive the calls from their parents.
If you wish to schedule an H1N1 or seasonal flu vaccination appointment for your child, we ask that you call between 10:30am and 12:30p and after 3:30 pm for these appointments. We will also be calling from the waiting list, however this list has grown to over a thousand patients, so this will take some time. To keep incoming lines open, you may be asked to leave your contact information in our Flu Voice Mailbox and one of our staff members will return your call regarding your appointment request.
Please be aware that at this time, we are only scheduling first doses of the H1N1 vaccine. Once we have administered one dose of this vaccine to the majority of our patients, we will then begin to administer the second dose to our patients less than 10 years of age as vaccine availability allows.
We understand the frustration that the lack of vaccine has caused you. We have been equally as frustrated as there seems to have been no rhyme or reason as to which
facilities have received shipments of the H1N1 vaccine. We apologize for all the difficulty this has caused for you.
The government agencies have not been helpful to us or to most of the pediatricians that we know. Curiously, some pediatric groups received large orders of vaccine early however most of us received little or none until very recently. We placed our order for the vaccine as soon as ordering process began in mid September. We have spent hundreds of man hours on the phone with the distributing agencies regarding the status of our orders and also to answer the huge volume of calls from our patients regarding the availability of the H1N1 vaccine. Please be assured that we are working hard
to insure our patients have access to this vaccine.
Please continue to check our website for H1N1 vaccine updates.
Flu Information
Influenza (or, ‘the flu) is a severe respiratory virus. It is primarily a disease of pigs and birds that sometimes is passed to humans. It is not a cold with a fever and, while children with the flu may vomit or have diarrhea, these are not the primary symptoms of the flu. It typically comes on very suddenly with severe lethargy, fever, muscle aches and increasing cough. The fever usually last 4-5 days, but may be less or more. The cough and lethargy persist for weeks after the fever subsides. The most common type is Influenza A, which is more severe than Influenza B. However, with Influenza B the fever lasts longer and the muscle pains are usually worse.
The H1N1 (‘Swine’) flu is a new type A influenza. It is different than the usual seasonal flu, to which most people have some immunity. H1N1 appeared in March 2009 in Mexico and became known to the US authorities in April of 2009. Because it is a new virus, and almost no one is immune, it is much more easily transmitted than seasonal flu. Unlike seasonal flu, this virus is milder in the elderly and more severe in children and young adults. It is somewhat more apt to cause vomiting and diarrhea than the usual seasonal flu viruses.
The H1N1 vaccine is NOT experimental. Every year the flu vaccine is made up of new viruses, because the strains change year to year. H1N1 is Influenza A flu vaccine, made the same way and by the same manufacturers as the seasonal vaccine has been made for decades. Had this virus struck a month earlier it would have been included in the seasonal flu vaccine, the production of which began in March.
We recommend that our patients over 6 months of age receive both the seasonal and the H1N1 vaccines. Each of these vaccines is available in a nasal and an injectable format. The nasal vaccine is a live, weakened flu virus that can grow in the nose, but not in the lungs. It is approved for healthy individuals over 24 months of age. It is not approved for patients with lung disease, including asthmatics, and those who have altered immunity or are pregnant. The injectable is a killed flu virus that can be given to almost all other individuals. Neither vaccine is recommended for those with severe egg allergy, since the virus is grown in egg. Special precautions must be taken to give the vaccine to high risk individuals who are egg allergic.
We have been seeing the H1N1 virus since the spring without let up. We have been seeing much more of it this fall.
> More information on influenza |
