Lower the temp on flu

The current wave of the swine flu pandemic appears to be relenting, and new research is projecting that deaths from the virus likely will be well below original estimates.

But the good news, delivered between alarming reports of drug-resistant strains of H1N1, presents public health officials with a problem: Avoid sensationalizing fatal cases of H1N1 while still convincing the public to get vaccinated.

“I want people to be a little bit worried,” said local infectious disease specialist Dr. Mark Anderson, who said his five children were vaccinated for H1N1. “Most people didn’t get that sick (from H1N1) but a very worrisome number of young, healthy people got profoundly sick or died. ... I don’t panic easily but this virus, I think, is pretty scary.”

Nationally and locally, reported cases of influenzalike illness have been on the decline for more than a month. Many experts are concerned, however, that seasonal flu or another wave of swine flu might hit hard this winter or, in a worst-case scenario, a more deadly mutation of H1N1 could emerge.

About 100 cases of H1N1 resistant to Tamiflu, a prescription medication for flu treatment, have been reported worldwide, The Associated Press reported last week.

“From the very beginning we have tried to make clear to everybody that this is something that is new and impossible to predict,” said Dr. Tim Jones, state epidemiologist with the Tennessee Department of Health. “We’ve always wanted to plan for the worst.”

After initial shortages and delays, H1N1 vaccine now is in such plentiful supply that officials in the region are offering vaccine to anyone who wants it, not just those who fall into high-risk categories.

Demand for the vaccine has dropped somewhat in Georgia as media coverage of the pandemic has declined, said Logan Boss, spokesman for Northwest Georgia Public Health.

“Flu is no longer widespread in as many states, which is softening demand for the vaccine at a time that we’ve got more vaccine coming in,” he said. “We’re trying to stay on message, and our primary message right now is that the pandemic is mild so far, but it could turn more virulent.”

In Tennessee 1.5 million H1N1 vaccines have been given. The remaining supply “is not sitting on the shelves. It’s all going out,” Dr. Jones said.

New research, based on trends in Minneapolis and New York, has shown the swine flu pandemic likely will be less severe than an earlier forecast by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which predicted between 30,000 and 90,000 deaths nationwide.

The new research projected that for every 10 percent of the population to develop flu symptoms, between 7,800 and 29,000 deaths would occur, according to one calculation method. Another method researchers used found a much lower range.

“It’s much less harmful than we feared it might be,” said lead researcher Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health. “I think it’s good news compared to what we thought was possible before.”

But even as the number of reported flu cases drops nationally and locally, two additional deaths in Hamilton County, of residents ages 25 and 27, were reported just this month to health officials. Five county residents have died of swine flu this year.

“It’s got to remind us of how devastating this flu can be,” said Becky Barnes, administrator at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department.

LOOKING AHEAD

Health officials hope news of the subsiding number of flu cases doesn’t comfort people so much that they think they don’t need vaccinations for both H1N1 and regular seasonal flu.

“We’re just entering the time of year when we would normally see our seasonal flu outbreak,” Dr. Jones said. “Just because they’ve skated through the last couple months doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods.”

For most, personal experience or anecdote often take precedence over global statistics in determining their reaction to a pandemic flu outbreak, experts said.

“I totally believe (the pandemic) was blown out of proportion,” said Hixson resident Irene Gruter, 51. She said her mild case of H1N1 earlier this year was a “piece of cake” compared to her run-in with seasonal influenza a few years ago.

For others, news that the swine flu pandemic has been relatively mild isn’t all that reassuring.

“For individuals, saying ‘one in a million’ sounds easy, but if you’re that one, statistics don’t matter,” Dr. Jones said.

Todd Randolph, of Cleveland, Tenn., said no precaution was too great for his 6-year-old daughter, who has a pre-existing condition that would put her at greater risk for H1N1.

When the first case of H1N1 was reported in Bradley County in October, before vaccines were available, Mr. Randolph said he pulled his daughter out of school and homeschooled her for two months.

“It wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction. We’d been planning on this since April,” he said.

His daughter since has been vaccinated and is back at school.

“I took a lot of heat from doing that from people who don’t understand, but ... the risk was too much for me to not do the right thing for my kids,” Mr. Randolph said.

Nationally, an estimated 47 million people have contracted H1N1 from April through mid-November, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

Likely 213,000 people have been hospitalized and 9,820 have died, including 1,090 children and 7,500 adults under age 65, the CDC said.

Complications related to regular seasonal flu kill 36,000 in America annually, but that figure includes deaths from influenza-related heart attacks and strokes in elderly patients, which have not been included in the H1N1 estimates, according to the CDC.