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Volume 6
Issue 33
10/28/09 - 11/3/09

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H1N1 vaccination: CDC briefing counters fears

By Annette Fuentes
New America Media

Two days after President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 flu outbreak a national emergency, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a briefing Monday for ethnic news media in order to debunk fears about flu shots and encourage mass vaccinations as a public health imperative.

With the overall message that “the flu ends with ‘u,’” CDC representatives described the current extent of the H1N1 pandemic and what the president’s declaration means; how H1N1 differs from the seasonal flu; and the vulnerable populations who should receive flu shots.

“The declaration of a national emergency is really a way to facilitate making the vaccine available,” said Dr. Andrew Kroger, head of the CDC’s national immunization program. “It makes it easier for hospitals to get it to people, to set up flu clinics faster.”

While there is no evidence that the H1N1 flu is becoming more severe, the CDC experts cautioned that with more than 1 million people already infected, the risks of the flu for vulnerable populations makes vaccination a safe and effective way to protect them.

Kroger said the demand for the flu vaccine has been “incredible” but that the availability of the H1N1 flu vaccine so far has been limited because the government was slow to begin work on it last spring. So far, 16.1 million doses of the H1N1 flu vaccine have been distributed nationally, but another 28 to 30 million doses will be available by the end of the month.

Unlike the seasonal flu vaccine, which is primarily manufactured and distributed by private pharmaceutical companies, the vaccine for the H1N1 flu is controlled and distributed by the federal government.

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