Monday, January 11, 2010
ACP President: Not Enough Americans Have Been Vaccinated Against H1N1 Flu
Editor's note: Val Jones, MD, guest authored this post, which originally appeared on her blog, Better Health.
Over 10,000 Americans (mostly young) have already died of H1N1 flu, and yet we've only vaccinated 10-20% of those who need protection. January 10-16 is National Influenza Awareness Week, and the American College of Physicians is doing its part to raise awareness of the ongoing need to protect Americans from the next wave of influenza.
I interviewed ACP President Joseph Stubbs, FACP, about the current influenza season and Americans' vulnerabilities to the virus. Please enjoy the audio of our conversation or click below on the word "More" to read the transcript here.
Dr. Val: I think a lot of Americans feel that the major push for flu vaccine is over. How many Americans do you estimate are still unvaccinated against H1N1 flu?
Dr. Stubbs: Only 10-20% of at-risk individuals have gotten the H1N1 vaccine so far. We really need people to get vaccinated as soon as possible in order to avoid a deadly increase in illness during the next wave of influenza.
Dr. Val: What have we learned about the virulence of this H1N1 strain?
Dr. Stubbs: So far the H1N1 virus has infected about 45 million Americans, resulting in 200,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths. Most of these deaths have occurred among young people, which is particularly tragic.
Dr. Val: How does the death rate of the H1N1 virus compare to the regular seasonal flu?
Dr. Stubbs: So far the H1N1 virus is killing about the same number of people that the seasonal flu kills, but the H1N1 has a predilection for the young, and pregnant women.
Dr. Val: Is the death rate from flu additive this year--meaning, are the H1N1 and seasonal flu viruses together killing twice as many people?
Dr. Stubbs: Absolutely. The next few months we could see a bump in the seasonal flu and a resurgence in the H1N1 virus. But both are preventable with vaccines.
Dr. Val: How have we done with seasonal flu vaccine rates this year?
Dr. Stubbs: We're on track to get about 30% of the population vaccinated against the seasonal flu. The one silver lining in the 2009 flu season is that the H1N1 virus brought a lot of focused media attention to the importance of vaccination and the dangers of influenza.
Dr. Val: Are there still vaccine shortages in certain pockets across the country?
Dr. Stubbs: There are. We have enough supply now but the distribution process has slowed things down. In my region in Georgia, the amount of supply has increased dramatically in the last few weeks and I hope that's indicative of what's happening across the country.
Dr. Val: Who should get vaccinated now?
Dr. Stubbs: For the seasonal flu, young women, pregnant women, those with chronic diseases, and people over age 65 are the main targets. For H1N1, pregnant women, children and young adults under the age of 25, those with chronic diseases between the ages of 25 and 64. I think that if you have a chronic medical condition, no matter what your age, you ought to be vaccinated with both the H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines. Healthcare professionals and their staff should also get both vaccines so they don't spread the flu to patients.
Dr. Val: What's your goal for vaccination of at-risk populations? I know we're only at 10-20% vaccination rates now ...
Dr. Stubbs: I like to set the bar high. My goal is 80-100%. The government regrets the slow start we got with vaccine supply and they're doing all they can to get people vaccinated now. If we can get more people vaccinated we can avert problems in the coming months and even in the coming years.
Dr. Val: What's your take home message for Americans entering this new year?
Dr. Stubbs: You can stay healthy by getting vaccinated.
***
Vaccination Resources from the American College of Physicians
--Immunization
--Adult immunization 
This post originally appeared on Better Health a network of popular health bloggers brought together by Val Jones, MD. Better Health’s mission is to support and promote healthcare professional bloggers, provide insightful and trustworthy health commentary, and help to inform health policy makers about the provider point of view on healthcare reform, science, research, and patient care.
Labels: flu, H1N1, vaccination
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
8:00 AM
Contact ACP Internist
Send comments to ACP Internist staff at acpinternist@acponline.org.
Previous Posts
- QD: News Every Day--mulling options for health car...
- News of the not-so-obvious
- QD: News Every Day--negotiations continue from eve...
- Highlights from our January issue
- Losing Money on Medicare
- Calorie counting as a class issue
- QD: News Every Day--how hospitals will fare with h...
- QD: News Every Day--ping-pong for reform
- Medical News of the Obvious
- QD: News Every Day--a new year of familiar debates...
Blog log
Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert
Fuchs, MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP, graduated from the
University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, where he
also did his internal medicine training. Certified by the American
Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs spent three years as a
full-time faculty member at UCLA School of Medicine before opening
his private practice in Beverly Hills in 2000.
Zackary
Berger
Zackary Berger, MD, ACP Member, is a primary care
doctor and general internist in the Division of General Internal
Medicine at Johns Hopkins. His research interests include
doctor-patient communication, bioethics, and systematic reviews.
CasesBlog
Ves
Dimov, MD, ACP Member, is an allergist/immunologist and Assistant
Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago,
where he evaluates and treats both pediatric and adult patients.
David
Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally
renowned authority on nutrition, weight management, and the
prevention of chronic disease, and an internationally recognized
leader in integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
db's
Medical Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP,
contributes short essays contemplating medicine and the health care
system.
DrDialogue
Juliet
K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about health topics
for patients and health professionals.
Dr.
Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal
medicine for more than a decade and is an Associate Professor of
Medicine at an academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is
split between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything
Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid
changes in science, medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet
Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the Internal
Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship & Discovery
at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of Chicago. Her
education and research focus is on resident duty hours, patient
handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of hospital care. She
is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass
Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides
transparency on the workings of medical practice and the complexities
of hospital care, illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of
caregiving and decision-making from the perspective of an active
primary care physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of
hospital sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut
Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist
at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the
Program Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have difficult-to-manage
esophageal problems such as refractory GERD, heartburn, and chest
pain.
I'm
dok
ACP Member Mike Aref, MD, PhD, ACP Member, is an academic
hospitalist with an interest in basic and clinical science and
education, with interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic
testing using novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic reasoning,
medical informatics, new medical education modalities, pre-code/code
management, palliative care, patient-physician communication, quality
improvement, and quantitative biomedical imaging.
Informatics
Professor
William Hersh, MD, FACP, Professor and Chair,
Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon
Health & Science University, posts his thoughts on various topics
related to biomedical and health informatics.
Just
Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in
clinical practice of hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a
joint publication with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin
Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites for
influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses
the joys and challenges of medical practice, including controversies
in the doctor-patient relationship, medical ethics and measuring
medical quality. When he's not writing, he's performing
colonoscopies.
Medical
Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, ACP Member, shares
her ideas on education, ethics in medicine, health care news and
culture. Her views on medicine are informed by her past experiences
in caring for patients, as a researcher in cancer immunology, and as
a patient who's had breast cancer.
More
Musings
Rob Lamberts, MD, ACP Member, a med-peds and general
practice internist, returns with "volume 2" of his personal
musings about medicine, life, armadillos and Sasquatch at More
Musings (of a Distractible Kind).
Musing
of an Internist
Justin Penn, MD, ACP Associate Member,
attended medical school at the University of Washington School of
Medicine and trained in internal medicine at the University of
Rochester, where he is serving as Chief Resident.
Prescriptions
David
M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a small
community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of musings on
medicine, medical care, the health care system and medical ethics, in
no particular order.
Reflections
of a Grady Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP,
reflects on the personal side of being a doctor in a community
hospital in Atlanta.
Technology
in (Medical) Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP,
is interested in use of technology in education, social media and
networking, practice management and evidence-based medicine tools,
personal information and knowledge management.
White
Coat Underground
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a
practicing internist and teaching physician in Southeast Michigan.
The blog, which has been around in various forms since 2007, offers
musings on the intersection of science, medicine, and culture.
Other blogs of note:
American
Journal of Medicine
Also known as the Green
Journal, the American Journal of Medicine publishes original clinical
articles of interest to physicians in internal medicine and its
subspecialities, both in academia and community-based practice.
Clinical
Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started
by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP Member, associate program director at New
York University Medical Center's internal medicine residency program.
Faculty, residents and students contribute case studies, mystery
quizzes, news, commentary and more.
Interact
MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept
industry money so he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed
space on the Internet for physicians to report and comment on the
medical news of the day.
PLoS
Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access
materials include a blog.
White
Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs
written by an emergency room physician.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home