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http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/life/health/brace-now-for-h1n1-scientists-58914502.html
Brace now for H1N1: scientists
Urge immunization of schoolchildren
By: Sharon Kirkey
11/09/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0
H1n1 will begin spreading substantially any day now, peak in mid- to late-October and infect 32 per cent of the population, according to a new study on the potential impact of the anticipated fall wave of H1N1.
Reporting in the journal Science, U.S. researchers say schoolchildren need to be immunized as quickly as possible to curb H1N1's spread.
They estimate each infected child will infect 2.4 other children in a school outbreak, putting H1N1 in the "higher range of transmissibility" for influenza.
Aggressive vaccination of the population should focus on children ages six months to 18 years as much as possible, the team says, as well as health-care workers, emergency services workers and those at risk for complications of the flu, in order to reduce attack rates, hospitalizations and deaths from the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century.
Their projections are an ominous warning for Canada.
The current plan calls for vaccinations to start in early November -- one month after the anticipated peak. The researchers say H1N1 will most likely follow the pattern of the Asian flu pandemic in 1957-58, rising in September and peaking in October.
"You've got to get (vaccination) started right away in the high-risk population and you have to hope that you're going to get the coverage rate you're desiring," said Kumanan Wilson, Canada Research Chair in public health policy at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
"If these people are right, Canada is not going to look too good in the long run."
The researchers say vaccinating at least 70 per cent of the population "could mitigate a severe pandemic."
Early in the outbreak, more than half of reported cases worldwide occurred in schoolchildren in the five- to 18-year-old range.
Children are the primary spreaders of the virus, said Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle and one of the authors of the study. "They're a very important part of the transmission. If you eliminate transmission in the schools and the schoolchildren, you eliminate a lot of transmission."
So far, the Public Health Agency of Canada has not said schoolchildren will be among the first to be immunized.
"Schoolchildren are key to delaying the spread, and getting them vaccinated early is important. We're not going to do that," Wilson says.
"It doesn't mean they (vaccinations) are going to be meaningless or useless.
"But we would have missed the opportunity to have the maximum benefit of the program."
Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, said vaccinations could start sooner than November should there be an earlier surge of infections.
-- Canwest News Service
Brace now for H1N1: scientists
Urge immunization of schoolchildren
By: Sharon Kirkey
11/09/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0
H1n1 will begin spreading substantially any day now, peak in mid- to late-October and infect 32 per cent of the population, according to a new study on the potential impact of the anticipated fall wave of H1N1.
Reporting in the journal Science, U.S. researchers say schoolchildren need to be immunized as quickly as possible to curb H1N1's spread.
They estimate each infected child will infect 2.4 other children in a school outbreak, putting H1N1 in the "higher range of transmissibility" for influenza.
Aggressive vaccination of the population should focus on children ages six months to 18 years as much as possible, the team says, as well as health-care workers, emergency services workers and those at risk for complications of the flu, in order to reduce attack rates, hospitalizations and deaths from the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century.
Their projections are an ominous warning for Canada.
The current plan calls for vaccinations to start in early November -- one month after the anticipated peak. The researchers say H1N1 will most likely follow the pattern of the Asian flu pandemic in 1957-58, rising in September and peaking in October.
"You've got to get (vaccination) started right away in the high-risk population and you have to hope that you're going to get the coverage rate you're desiring," said Kumanan Wilson, Canada Research Chair in public health policy at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
"If these people are right, Canada is not going to look too good in the long run."
The researchers say vaccinating at least 70 per cent of the population "could mitigate a severe pandemic."
Early in the outbreak, more than half of reported cases worldwide occurred in schoolchildren in the five- to 18-year-old range.
Children are the primary spreaders of the virus, said Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle and one of the authors of the study. "They're a very important part of the transmission. If you eliminate transmission in the schools and the schoolchildren, you eliminate a lot of transmission."
So far, the Public Health Agency of Canada has not said schoolchildren will be among the first to be immunized.
"Schoolchildren are key to delaying the spread, and getting them vaccinated early is important. We're not going to do that," Wilson says.
"It doesn't mean they (vaccinations) are going to be meaningless or useless.
"But we would have missed the opportunity to have the maximum benefit of the program."
Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, said vaccinations could start sooner than November should there be an earlier surge of infections.
-- Canwest News Service
