Sunday, October 11, 2009

U.S. school swine flu event shows vaccine challenge/ Reuters

From Reuters:
A U.S. government media event to promote H1N1 school vaccinations on Friday included VIPs, cute kids and a phalanx of television cameras -- but only one in five children at the school had proper parental consent to get immunized. . .

But the small numbers also underscored the challenge facing the U.S. government's $6.4 billion immunization effort which involves the widespread use of schools as vaccine clinics for the first time in a generation.
H1N1 poses a greater danger of severe illness and death for children and young people than seasonal flu, which is particularly dangerous for the elderly.
Another [problem] was that the only vaccine on offer was AstraZeneca unit MedImmune's nasal spray, which is unsuitable for children with underlying conditions such as asthma. [It historically is less effective than injections, and effectiveness of flu vaccines in children is even more uncertain than in adults, but since the spray is available first, we are giving it to our children before there is even adequate data in adults.]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

im trying to find out if the spray is contatagous if the child wipes his noses with the spray left on from draining or if they run a fever from a side effect from it? do i need to keep my child away from school the day they do the spray and shots, i heard they are contagous on the first day and the fourth day of them?