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Monday, November 14, 2005

Updating Flu Vaccine

Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control held a telephone news conference on November 10th to give an update on flu vaccine.

Gerberding notes that there has been the start of an effort to redistribute vaccine among clinics and health care providers in certain areas of spot shortages. Clinics and health providers who have received vaccine from producers other than Chiron have shipments on time. Those that have been reliant on Chiron have had some shipments delayed. Gerberding said:

"These health officials are also really going to help with the redistribution process, so they're reaching out to find out who has surplus vaccine, who still needs doses, and they'll work on trying to redistribute that at the local level. Gerberding said that there is no area in the country showing an outbreak of flu and that 2005 looks to be a record year for flu vaccine distribution."
The Wall Street Journal has been doing a ongoing, extensive, and comprehensive job in covering flu and avian flu. There is nothing comparable being done by any other newspaper. Community newspapers which subscribe to the Wall Street Journal news service would have done well to publish many of the articles.

Those who wish to see those articles should go to the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition at WSJ.com. You many subscribe to the Wall Street Journal Online which gives you access to additional content not published in the daily print edition. The morning print edition is available for home delivery in much of the Fort Wayne area.

Additionally a great study on herd immunity to the flu was published earlier this year. The link is courtesy of the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The NCBI is part of the National Library of Medicine operated by the National Institutes of Health.
Highest attack rates for influenza occur in children. Immunization of schoolchildren with inactivated influenza vaccine in Michigan and Japan was associated with decreased morbidity and mortality, respectively, in older community contacts.

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