PORT ANGELES — Public health officials have confirmed that one person on the North Olympic Peninsula has died of complications of swine flu.
Dr. Tom Locke, health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, said Wednesday that a Clallam County man in his mid-50s who had multiple risk factors died of H1N1-related complications in Port Angeles on Nov. 5.
Tests confirmed the case after swine flu deaths became a reportable event on Sept. 18.
“Unfortunately, this is our first recorded death,” Locke said from Washington, D.C.
“We had investigated one [report last week], but it turned out to not be due to H1N1. But now we do have a confirmed death.”
Jefferson County has not had a confirmed swine flu death. Kitsap County has had one.
Delays in reporting swine flu deaths are common because most cases go through a state lab, which has a limited testing capacity.
“There usually is some delay with that,” Locke said.
Statewide, there have been 44 confirmed swine flu-associated deaths since the strain first appeared in April.
Twenty-eight of those occurred after health officials started tracking them in mid-September.
Federal health officials this week expanded estimates for swine flu deaths from 1,000 to 4,000 or more.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “many millions” of Americans have caught the pandemic virus since it emerged.
Peninsula flu
All of the Peninsula’s confirmed flu cases this winter have been H1N1, Locke said. The normal winter flu is expected to hit the region — along with a second plateau of swine flu activity — in mid-winter.
Locke estimates that between two and five people in Clallam County die from seasonal flu every year. That number ranges from 300 and 400 statewide, he added.
“That’s why we’re so serious about influenza,” Locke said.
Considered mild by pandemic standards, H1N1 is similar to the seasonal flu. Most healthy people recover on their own in a matter of days.
So far, more younger people are catching the swine flu than older people, but it is hitting people between the ages of 50 and 64 hardest.
“We’re definitely seeing that as a phenomenon,” Locke said.
Those who were born in the 1930s or before have developed an immunity to H1N1 because of a similar strain that circulated the globe.
“The immunity is not 100 percent,” Locke noted.
Manufacturing delays of the swine flu vaccine limited early doses to pregnant women, health care workers, children under 4 and anyone under 64 with a chronic medical condition.
Vaccine shipments
Now that shipments of the vaccine have doubled, public health officials expect to make shots available to all children and young adults by the end of the month.
Clallam County is projected to get more than 10,000 doses this month, compared to the 5,300 it received in October.
Jefferson County is projected to get more than 4,000 doses in November, compared to the 2,100 it received last month.
By December, availability is projected to catch up with demand, and anyone who wants a shot will be able to get one.
A separate shot for seasonal flu is needed.
“Once sufficient vaccine becomes available, we’re really recommending that everybody get the vaccine, including those over 65,” Locke said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
