WASHINGTON – State health officials are urging people to get immunized for the flu, saying there is enough time and enough vaccine left to do some good.
The state is reaching the peak of its flu season — there were 850 lab-confirmed cases of flu as of this week in Maryland, where the flu has been “widespread” since early January. But state officials note that the flu season still has months to run.
“Do we want more people to be vaccinated? Yes,” said Gregory Reed, program manager for the Center for Immunization at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
After an early season shortage scared away people who should have been vaccinated, the state finds itself with a surplus of vaccine doses. All state restrictions on eligibility for a flu vaccine were lifted on Jan. 25.
“Many people didn’t get a shot who ordinarily would” due to the initial supply scare and strict eligibility guidelines, Reed said. “My neighbor, who is in a high-risk category by age, stepped aside.”
Reed could not say how many doses are still available in Maryland, but that the state had not used all of the 1 million vaccine doses it received at the beginning of the season.
Nationally, there are more than 3 million doses left, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said only 93 percent of the national supply has been used.
Even though flu season is in full swing, Reed said the 850 cases currently confirmed is well shy of the 1,305 cases confirmed in Maryland at this time last year.
Part of the reason may be that this year’s flu was better controlled nationally, thanks to a better match between the virus strains in the vaccine and the virus strains that emerged, said CDC Director Julie L. Gerberding in testimony before the Senate on Thursday.
Gerberding said that because of production problems, the number of vaccine doses nationally fell from 83 million last year to 61 million this year. Even though more people were vaccinated last year, however, the match was not as good and led to more flu cases and more deaths, she said.
The flu peak has caused a surge at hospital emergency rooms, sparking Gov. Ehrlich’s plea for people to only use emergency services if it is a true emergency.
Dr. Richard Alcorta of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems said that this time of year it is common for there to be a surge of patients presenting flu-like symptoms.
“Ambulances are waiting lined up at the door can’t get patients unloaded,” he said. “We’re seeing a nature’s bioterrorist attack.”
Gloria Barlow with the emergency department at Maryland General Hospital in Baltimore, said the surge comes from a combination of factors.
People in lower-income brackets often use the emergency room for primary care, she said, knowing they cannot be turned away based on an inability to pay. A belief that antibiotics will treat the flu is also a common misconception that results in this seasonal overflow.
“Our society has changed, people used to tough it out,” she said.
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