Wider Flu Vaccination Urged - Target Group Includes Kids Age 2 to 5 and Their Households - then everyone

[Guest guest]

Wider Flu Vaccination Urged

Target Group Includes Kids Age 2 to 5 and Their Households

By Brown

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, February 23, 2006; A04

wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/22/AR2006022202080.html

The committee that sets federal immunization policy recommended yesterday

that children 2 to 5 years old be vaccinated against influenza every year,

expanding the " target population " for flu shots and inching toward the day

when they will be recommended for everyone.

The government had previously recommended yearly flu vaccination only for

children age 6 months to 23 months. The new recommendation also includes

" household contacts " of children between their second and fifth birthdays.

This group -- parents and older siblings not covered by other

recommendations -- outnumbers the children in the new recommendation.

Flu vaccination has been urged for years for everyone older than 50, with

special attention to people over 65 and those with chronic illnesses.

Children older than 6 months with chronic illnesses should also be immunized.

Although the number of serious illnesses and deaths from flu in the 2-to-5

age group is small, the virus is responsible for much use of health care

and much lost work time by parents, the Advisory Committee on Immunization

Practices found. For that reason alone, it decided, broader use of the

vaccine is justified.

The decision may have secondary benefits, as well. Recent studies show that

vaccinating children may help protect the elderly and chronically ill, who

are at highest risk from flu complications. Children are principally

responsible for spreading the germ, and with less of it circulating, fewer

people will become infected.

Boosting demand for flu shots may also encourage more pharmaceutical

companies to enter the flu vaccine business or expand existing plant

capacity -- both considered important steps in preparing for a possible

pandemic, or global outbreak, of a new flu strain.

The committee is made up of epidemiologists, infectious-disease specialists

and public health officials, most from outside the government. Its

recommendations help determine which children can receive free vaccine

through federal programs, and they are generally followed by private

practitioners as well.

The decision demonstrated " something of a paradigm shift " in the

committee's usual rationale for expanding immunization, said

Schaffner, a physician who is a nonvoting member of the committee. He

represents the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the

Infectious Diseases Society of America.

" The committee was persuaded more by the doctor's office visits, the

emergency room visits and the use of antibiotics in this age group, " he

said. " Those considerations played an even larger role than

hospitalizations and deaths in the committee's decision. "

Data presented to the committee, which met at the Atlanta headquarters of

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that about 85 out of

every 1,000 4-year-olds are taken to a doctor for influenza each year, and

about 65 are prescribed antibiotics.

Antibiotics do not kill influenza virus. It is sometimes difficult,

however, to differentiate flu from bacterial infections that may require

antibiotics.

In the 2003-2004 flu season, 153 children up to age 17 died of confirmed

influenza infection, and 70 percent of them were not in one of the

high-risk categories.

Including healthy children 24 months to 59 months old and the people they

live with will add 16.7 million people to the count of potential vaccine

recipients -- 5.3 million children and 11.4 million household contacts,

said , a CDC epidemiologist.

Children who have never been vaccinated against flu require two shots to be

protected. Consequently, the new recommendation would require 20 million to

30 million more doses of vaccine.

Nobody expects anything close to the entire target population to be reached

in the immediate future. In the flu season a year ago -- the first in which

all children age 6 months to 23 months were supposed to be vaccinated --

about 48 percent were immunized, according to a government survey.

The new recommendation was made, in part, on the assurances by vaccine

makers that they could fill the expected demand.

This season, 86 million doses of flu vaccine were made and 81 million doses

have been shipped, said. Manufacturers say they can make 100 million

to 120 million doses next year.

Three companies made flu shots this year, and one -- MedImmune, based in

Gaithersburg -- made a nasal-spray vaccine containing live weakened virus.

Next year, a fourth maker of injected vaccine is expected to be selling flu

vaccine in the United States.

[Can a state's National Guard protect militarily against the ACIP? The

notion is increasingly credible. How can we protect ourselves against the

ACIP, the likes of Offitt, local injectors who blindly follow Vaccinology's

Orthodoxy? -]

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

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