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This Week's Developments:
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) today announced the deaths of a 53-year-old Essex County resident, a 20-year-old Norfolk County resident and a 21-year-old Hampden County resident all related to H1N1. All 3 residents had underlying health conditions that placed them at greater risk of complications from the flu. This brings the total number of deaths related to H1N1 in Massachusetts to 10.
These deaths are a tragic reminder of how serious flu can be for some people. Each year, seasonal influenza causes 250,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths nationally. Certain groups of people are at higher risk of complications from the flu. These groups include: children under the age of 2, adults over the age of 65, pregnant women, and people with chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease. These people should call their doctor immediately to discuss appropriate treatment if they develop a fever with a cough, sore throat or runny nose.
Simple Precautions to Help Stop the Spread of Flu Include:
- Wash your hands frequently with soap and warm water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
- Cover your cough with a tissue or cough into your inner elbow and not into your hands.
- If you are sick stay home from work and if your child is sick keep them home for 7 days, or 24 hours after your symptoms go away—whichever is longer.
- Stay informed about the latest developments on the H1N1 flu, by visiting www.mass.gov/dph.
You can read our complete weekly report by clicking here: Download Weekly Report 7-30-09 (For a PDF version click here: Download PDF Weekly Report 7-30-09)
Also this week a board of CDC advisors made recommendations on the use of H1N1 vaccine when it is developed and deemed safe for use. The CDC held a media briefing during which they discussed the recommendations. You can listen to the briefing by clicking the player below.
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How can you say the cases have dropped if your no longer even really testing except in severe cases??!?!? ========================== Tom Lyons responds: Kelly, thanks for your question. Our surveillance systems don’t rely on confirmed test results. Instead they measure the number of people who visit doctor’s offices, health centers and hospitals complaining of influenza-like illness. The predominant strain of flu circulating right now is H1N1 flu.
Will there be an antibiotic free, preservative free H1N1 vaccine as I am VERY allergic to neomycin and patch tested allergic to thimerasol and can only get the Fluzone Preservative Free Seasonal Flu Vaccine as it does not contain any antibiotics and definitely keeps me from getting the flu. There are other preservative free ones out there but the neomycin and related antibiotics in them would kill me. Hopefully, Sanofi Pasteur is making a similar vaccine for H1N1 so I could be vaccinated as I am not in good health and 71 years old. Would you have any information on this? JOHN JACOB RESPONDS: Although no H1N1 vaccines have been approved yet, we expect that at least one formulation will be thimerosal-free. We have no other information, so I am afraid we don’t know yet whether the thimerosal-free formulation will have neomycin or not. CDC will post information about the different H1N1 formulations on their website as soon as they are approved, which is not expected until mid-September. Having said that, it’s important that you have a conversation with your health care provider to help you make an informed decision whenever the vaccine becomes available.
..and, how can you say “Each year, seasonal influenza causes 250,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths nationally.”. You know, I hope, that the 36K figure is an ESTIMATE made because the seasonal flu largely kills elders with mulitple medical complications, many in nursing homes…and they figured that seasonal flu is under-counted because it is not on the death certificate all the time because of how ill elders die. They did a complicated calculation to try to take that into account. In addition, I am almost positive that the 36K estimate is for FLU AND PNEUMONIA(not just Flu). So, I would hope that you would AT LEAST CALL IT AN ESTIMATE, and to not do so is misleading to say the least. Almost all other places I have read this, have preserved the word “estimate” as that is what it is. I am both curious and alarmed by how you use the 36K figure, and after seeing this figure over and over in the public health estabishment and media, that you are joining those who seem to be making an effort for some reason, That is, using that figure, to DOWNPLAY the illness and deaths caused by the pandemic flu strain this by trying to show the public with the 36K figure…as if to say “see in comparison the pandemic flu is much more mild…see only a few hundred have died”. Because that is what you convey. I hope you do not wonder why much of the public is then confused or irritated by the message that they need to prepare for something in the fall or even to get vaccine. After all, “comparitively” this is so mild…they might think. Either that or someone is being lax in choosing their wording. Is it worse that someone does not care, is so lax, or is trying to deliberately downplay this pandemic (because they fear public “panic”? I am not sure what is worse. People will panic most if they end up UNPREPARED emotionally and concretely for this…and downplaying things or portraying them innacurately so they end up downplayed, contributes to the public not trusting the public health establishment and will keep people from being prepared…to say, get vaccinated even if they are in a high risk catagory. MORE Americans have died (per number infected), I believe, because people who had underlying medical conditions did not seek help in time for Tamiflu to work. I think that is because they are getting the message that this thing is trivial, which contradicts some other messages. So, it is not right to compare “apples and oranges”. You, and the media follow you as an official source, propagate this 36K meme and compare it to the only 3-400 who have died so far as if to say this flu is much less severe than seasonal flu. Think through what your messaging says…why else include that figure but for contrast? But the comparison is wrong because the hundreds who have so far died of pandemic flu, that number, have been tested and affirmed. They are actual bodies. YOu can compare that number then only to the same number of death certificates that say “FLU” as the cause of death. Apparetnly that number is about 800 a year (I do not have source available, sorry). Tho not exact, that is a more fair comparison in kind of numbers. I hope you will tell us the truth and not fear our reaction. We are relying on you to protect us and inform us. Yet what I see scares me…including that you will not put the ages and circumstances of those who died online. I worked in healthcare and know HIPPA. It would be easy to share some more info without breaking patient confidentiality. I do not believe that can be the only reason you do not share information with us and the media. Other states and countries are more forthcoming. I want to look at who is dying and how so I can assess my own risk. I hope that SOMEONE is gathering all the data so they can see what risk factors IF ANY over time make people ill…maybe you will find that most people wo died, for example, did not get Tamiflu within 48 hrs as they are suppose to for it to work. Maybe you will see they waited till they were too ill for care. and if you are gathering the data you should share it so we would know. Young functioning, many healthy, people are dying of this. It is not a disease, like seasonal flu, that kills off only those who are weak and sickly. thank you for considering this long message.
Just posted a comment and it got sent for review as I was trying to edit it. Sorry for the bad grammar in first paragraph. And I think in the end I was wrong (I do not have access to the post) to say that you were not reporting the ages as I see you are. I still wish you can tell us how long the person was sick, if they got Tamiflu or not, and WHAT conditions they have. My understanding of HIPPA is that if it’s connected to the name of the person you cannot share information. But you are not reporting names. Perhaps you fear the media will link the name with the person’s information? I do not know how they do this if they do not know the town, and would argue that the public needs to know the information. Or at least explain to us that you are gathering the details of each severe case but do not want to share them and exactly why. Because reading “both patients had an underlying medical condition” over and over gets so old, and it just seems like it is almost dismissing the death as something caused by that rather than the flu. I think for alot of the uniformed public, it would make them dismiss their own vulnerablity hearing that over and over. Tamiflu and hopefuly Relenza is really important to get. My understanding is that we do not as a state have the amount we were supposed to according to the pandemic plan written three or so years ago. I hope we still can get enough. REVIEWER-PLEASE DO NOT POST MY FULL NAME ON THE PREVIOUS POST ============================ Tom Lyons responds: We do try to give people all the necessary information that they need to stay informed about the situation. We also recognize that some people want more detail on individual cases, however we take our responsibility to protect patient privacy very seriously. We do have a substantial stockpile of antiviral medications on hand if we need additional supplies, and we recently added to that stockpile after the spring outbreak.
“predominant strain is pandemic strain”. Isn’t it that almost ALL flu right now is pandemic swine flu? I thought 97-99% or more of CDC tests were showing that. Correct me if that is not true. If it is, I think being specific would help people. I say this because it would be great to put that out there clearly, that IF YOU HAVE THE FLU IT IS LIKELY PANDEMIC FLU. I had a friend say she had the “flu” but her doc said it was not swine just ‘regular flu”…this two weeks ago without a test. It is important because my friend’s teenager has asthma. If my friend knew she most likely had swine flu, if her kid caught it she would be more vigilant (high risk catagory) and get her kid to the doc within the 48 hour Tamiflu-treatment window. This because her kid is looking more likely to get severely ill or even die from pandemic swine flu than from regular flu and the CDC says if, like her teenager, you are in a high risk catagory you should get Tamiflu within 48hrs. So it matters to people alot to know if what they have is likely swine flu since in some cases the decisions are different. If you can’t test everyone or even most people it would be good to be clear that this summer it looks like if you have the flu it’s pretty safe to assume you have the pandemic strain. ======================== Tom Lyons responds: Hi, thanks for your comment. Yes, it is likely if someone did get sick at this point that it would likely be H1N1 flu, since that is the predominant strain circulating right now in Massachusetts. We have seen a decline in the number of people reporting influenza-like illness over the past few weeks, however we are likely to see an increase as we enter the fall.
I’m with you, I’m around 18 wks praengnt. I also read the vaccine has mercury in it, and other things I don’t want near me or the baby. I know what the media is saying, but they lie a lot for the lefts sake, so I don’t trust them. I have been reading stories from actual people who are sick as dogs from the flu shot.But at the same time, if I knew it was safe, and could save me and the baby, I would take it. I read even nurses and doctors don’t want to take it, but expect us to. Where you are in N.Y. health care workers were protesting the shot, because they were told they would loose their job if they didn’t. Why would the gov’t have to force something if it’s so great?.Something came to my mind about if there was a connection in Obamas crappy healthcare take over and this so called flu emergency??? Read about Judy Roberts story on youtube, how she was paralyzed from the swine flu shot back in the 70 s. More people died from that vaccine than the actual flu, so I just don’t know.