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Houston-Area Health Officials Push Flu-Vaccine Alternative

Posted on: Thursday, 21 October 2004, 13:00 CDT

Oct. 21--Local health officials unleashed a new strategy in the battle against the flu Wednesday, pushing a vaccine that prevents a complication more serious than the virus itself.

Officials called on people to be inoculated against pneumococcal disease, a bacterial illness that kills more people in the United States every year than all other vaccine-preventable diseases.

"This is very important," said Rita Obey, spokeswoman for Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services, which is offering the vaccine along with the city and the Harris County Hospital District. "In light of the flu vaccine shortage, we encourage people, especially senior citizens and others at high risk, to receive a pneumococcal shot."

The appeal comes two weeks after U.S. health officials learned that one of the nation's two vaccine manufacturers had to shut down its plant in Britain because of contamination issues. The shutdown cut the nation's 2004 flu vaccine supply almost in half, left officials scrambling to figure out how to ration the remaining doses and created hysteria among some people who worried they wouldn't get their shot.

Health officials urged healthy, younger people to forgo the flu vaccine and called for shots to go instead to senior citizens, people with underlying medical conditions, children 6 to 23 months, caregivers and women who will be pregnant during the flu season -- all of whom are at risk of potentially deadly complications.

Pneumococcal disease is the most deadly complication, killing 40,000 Americans a year. Difficult to treat because it has become resistant to many drugs, it causes serious infections in the lungs (pneumonia), blood or brain (meningitis). The flu kills 36,000 Americans a year.

The pneumococcal vaccine is very safe and has few side effects. Some get a little swelling and soreness when they get the shot, but those effects usually go away in a day or two.

The vaccine is available to clinics and primary-care physicians. Costs will vary.

Besides seniors, health officials are urging people who have problems with their lungs, heart, liver or kidneys, and anyone with health problems like diabetes, sickle cell disease, alcoholism or HIV/AIDS, to get the pneumococcal shot.

People who've received the shot sometime previously in their life don't need a second dose unless they're 65 or older and got the shot before turning 60; have a damaged spleen or no spleen; have sickle cell disease, leukemia, lymphoma or multiple myeloma; are experiencing kidney failure; were the recipient of an organ or bone marrow transplant; have nephrotic syndrome; or are taking medication that lowers immunity.

WHERE TO GET A SHOT

--Harris County Hospital District offers one more session of free flu shots, 9-11 a.m. Monday Dec. 15 at LBJ Hospital.

--Grocery and drug stores often offer flu shots on scheduled dates.

--Houston's Department of Health and Human Services lists recommended flu shot sites.

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Source: Houston Chronicle

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