Swine Flu Vaccine Too Late to Help Most

All the debate about the safety of the H1N1 (Swine Flu) vaccine and determining whether to be vaccinated may be moot.

You may get the flu before you have an opportunity to receive the vaccine.

From the Washington Times:

The H1N1 vaccine will arrive too late to help most Americans who will be infected during this flu season, according to a study conducted by scholars at Purdue University.

The study also estimates that the virus - commonly referred to as the swine flu bug - will infect about 60 percent of the U.S. population, although only about 25 percent of Americans will fall ill.

Published Oct. 15 in Eurosurveillance, a scientific journal devoted to epidemiology and the surveillance and control of communicable diseases, the study was conducted by professors Sherry Towers and Zhilan Feng of, respectively, Purdue's statistics and mathematics departments.

"The model predicts that there will be a significant wave in autumn, with 63% of the population being infected, and that this wave will peak so early that the planned [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] vaccination campaign will likely not have a large effect on the total number of people ultimately infected by the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus," the authors wrote in their study.

The authors said that this is the week, through Oct. 24, during which the greatest number of people would be infected. The vaccination program has barely started in the U.S.

"The model predicts that the peak wave of infection will occur near the end of October in week 42, with 8% of the population being infected during that week. By the end of 2009, the model predicts that a total of 63% of the population will have been infected," the authors wrote in a conclusion that ignored the effects of a CDC vaccination program.

But even "when the model was modified to include the effect of the planned vaccination scheme," that adjustment yielded only "a relative reduction of about 6% in the total number of people infected" by the end of the year 2009.

We're seeing an increase in outbreaks of H1N1 in Wisconsin here at the end of October, as predicted by the model used in this study.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Another Milwaukee-area school has been ordered closed by health department officials due to excessive numbers of students absent with flu-like symptoms.

Hartland South Elementary School will be closed until Monday, Hartland-Lakeside School District Superintendent Glenn Schilling said.

...The other two schools in the Waukesha County district - Hartland North Elementary School and North Shore Middle School - will continue to hold classes. Hartland North has about 15% of its students out sick, down from Monday's absentee rate, Schilling said. About 10% of North Shore's students are reporting illnesses, he said.

The Greendale Health Department closed the village's Canterbury Elementary School on Tuesday. More than 40% of the school's students were gone from the school Monday and nearly 1 out of 5 staff members were exhibiting symptoms, officials said at a Tuesday morning press conference. The school expects to reopen on Friday.

In addition to the Milwaukee-area schools, four more Wisconsin schools have closed in the last two days due to influenza-like illness, according to a state health official.

The Crandon School District closed on Monday and anticipates reopening on Oct. 26.

Three more schools closed on Tuesday morning: St. Paul Lutheran School in Green Bay, which expects to reopen on Friday; Walworth Elementary School in Walworth, which expects to reopen Oct. 27; and New Century Charter School in Verona, which expects to reopen Oct. 26.

The massive inoculation program planned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seems like it might be too little too late.