If you’ve had the flu this season, it was probably swine flu, the North Olympic Peninsula’s top public health officer said Tuesday.
The H1N1 virus is spreading across the state — about three months ahead of seasonal flu — and the federal government can’t keep up with demand for the vaccine.
Confirmed influenza cases have been reported locally from Port Townsend to Neah Bay.
“Virtually all of it is H1N1,” Dr. Tom Locke, health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, told the Clallam County Board of Health on Tuesday.
“The same pattern is being seen all around the state.”
Most states, including Washington, have geographically widespread influenza activity.
“We’re not really sure at what point it will peak,” Locke said.
The good news is swine flu isn’t as scary as it sounds.
The H1N1 virus is classified as a category 1 pandemic, or the least severe on a scale of 1 to 5.
It symptoms are virtually identical to normal winter flu.
“The vast majority of people getting it are getting mild, uncomplicated illness that gets better on its own in a matter of days,” Locke said.
“As pandemic influenza strains go, this is about as mild as we could hope for.”
Parents of healthy children can pretty much treat it like they would any other viral illness.”
The major difference with H1N1 is that it spreads faster than seasonal flu, especially among younger people.
People 50 years and older are largely immune to H1N1 because of a similar strain that circulated around the 1950s.
The number of swine flu cases on the Peninsula or anywhere else is unknown because many people never report it or seek medical care.
Quiet emergence
H1N1 emerged last spring and sat quietly in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer.
Now that school’s in session and the weather’s getting colder, the virus is spreading faster than manufacturers can keep up.
Health officials had hoped that large supplies of the vaccine would be available by now.
“That has not happened,” Locke said.
Clallam and Jefferson counties were projected to receive thousands of doses per week by mid- to late October.
“To our disappointment, we learned last Friday, that large flow is not going to happen,” Locke said.
“In fact, the manufacturers are reporting production problems. Their original estimate was that they were going to have 40 million doses by the middle of October, then it was 40 million by the end of October.
“Now it’s been reduced to 28 million by the end of October.
“Based on the order allocations we saw today, we’re not going to even see that.”
Clallam County is seeing 700 new doses per week. Jefferson County is getting about half that.
Population-based
Allocation is based on a county’s population. Clallam outnumbers Jefferson County 71,021 to 29,542.
The vaccine is shipped directly to hospitals, clinics and public health departments.
A federally designated priority list was established to allocate early doses of the vaccine to people who need it most — like health care workers, pregnant women, children and young adults from 6 months to 24 years ,and anyone with a chronic medical condition.
“That priority list is determined to be about 30 percent of the U.S. population,” Locke said.
“We have nowhere near the amount of vaccine needed to vaccinate everyone on that priority list.
The first batches, which rolled out on the Peninsula on Oct. 6, came in the form of a live-virus nasal mist.
An injectable vaccine for anyone who wants it by should be available by December, according to the changing projections.
Since there isn’t enough vaccine for everyone on the priority list, health officials are using a sub-priority list.
“We’re focusing on health care workers and emergency service workers because they are being exposed again and again,” Locke said.
“If they become infected, they can infect others that they’re caring for.”
Pregnant women
Pregnant women are another top priority because they are the mostly likely to die from the flu.
Of the 900 deaths reported in the U.S. from lab-confirmed influenza, about 6 percent were pregnant women, Locke said.
Parents and household members of infants under 6 months round out the first sub-category. Babies under 6 months cannot take the vaccine themselves.
Beginning next week children younger than 4 — and those with the most severe chronic medical problems — will be eligible for the vaccine, though there won’t be enough to go around.
“We were thinking originally that by November there would be enough vaccine that anyone who wanted it could get it,” Locke said.
“That date is being pushed back further and further.”
Mike Chapman, chairman of the Board of Health and a Clallam County commissioner, asked Locke when a parent should take a flu-stricken child to the doctor.
“Some kids can have very high temperatures, 103 or 104 [degrees], and they don’t even seem that sick,” Locke said.
“Others can be quite ill, unable to hold down fluids, excessively drowsy or confused, with very low temperatures.
“It’s challenging to explain this to parents, but the most important variable of all this for children is just the overall look of the child.
“If the child is paying attention to things and relating normally and getting in fluids and breathing comfortably and not having any respiratory distress, they are probably going to weather it just fine.”
“Kids that look really sick, and are acting really sick, likely are really sick.”
Schools contact
Schools have been asked to contact the health department when illness-related absenteeism exceeds 10 percent.
So far, the Port Angeles and Quillayute school districts have reported 10 percent absenteeism.
The H1N1 vaccine does not protect against seasonal flu.
Early production problems with the seasonal flu vaccine — which has caused spot shortages in Jefferson and Clallam counties and across the country — seem to have been resolved, Locke said.
“They’ve managed to manufacture and administer now an excess 85 million doses and counting,” Locke said.
Locke tried to dispel fears that the H1N1 vaccine is unsafe.
“The vaccine went through the same kind of safety testing that each year’s seasonal flu vaccine goes through,” Locke said.
“There’s been misinformation out there that they took shortcuts, and actually they didn’t. They went through the same safety testing.”
While health official wait for more vaccine to arrive, Locke stressed the importance of preventative measures like washing hands, covering coughing mouths and staying home when sick.
“All true influenza cases right now are being caused by H1N1 in Washington state,” Locke said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com
