WILLMAR - Local health providers are gearing up for that annual rite of autumn, the administering of the influenza vaccine.
Vaccine that is given in upcoming weeks will help protect children and adults during the 2014-15 flu season. Health officials recommend it for everyone over the age of six months, unless specifically indicated otherwise.
Although the vaccine supply is plentiful this year, it has been somewhat slower than usual to arrive at clinics, pharmacies, hospitals and other sites where the flu vaccine is given.
Family Practice Medical Center received its first shipment in August and has already used up most of it on the clinic’s established patients, said Stacey Zondervan, assistant administrator.
“It’s trickling in,” she said. “Sometime next week we should be getting more.”
Several pharmacies also have the vaccine on hand.
At Affiliated Community Medical Centers, vaccination for established patients will start taking place this month, said Jo DeBruycker, director of ACMC’s Health Learning Center.
“It’s right around the corner. Our goal is that we’ll start having access in the third week of September,” she said.
For the first time, the regional multi-specialty health system plans to use its online patient portal, to spread the word to patients about getting the flu vaccine.
The patient portal became available at the beginning of 2014,
“We’ll also be sending messages by phone. We’re hoping we can use the electronic health record and save steps.”
Zondervan said Family Practice Medical Center will keep its patients posted on the status of vaccine availability through recorded messages on the clinic’s phone system.
“What I would encourage people to do is call and listen to the phone message,” she said. “We keep it updated as much as possible.”
There’s still “plenty of time” for people to get the flu vaccine, she noted. “It’s not too early to get a shot. It’s not too late to get a shot.”
This year’s formulation of the flu vaccine comes in two versions, a traditional trivalent that protects against two A strains and one B strain of influenza and a quadrivalent that protects against two strains each of A and B influenza. It’s the second year that a quadrivalent version of the vaccine has been widely available, and flu experts say it offers broader protection from whatever flu viruses may circulate during the season.
A-category strains of the flu virus have typically hit earlier in the season, caused more severe illness and affected older adults the most, while B strains arrive later, are less severe and are most prevalent among children. But data emerging in recent years have shown a shift in this, with B strains circulating earlier and sometimes causing significant illness in children and young adults.
“We’re seeing the old pattern is no longer true,” DeBruycker said. The quadrivalent vaccine “gives everybody the best coverage,” she said.
All of ACMC’s flu vaccine this year is quadrivalent, she said. Many other providers are offering both trivalent and quadrivalent versions of the vaccine.
FluMist, an inhaled form of flu vaccine that’s approved for healthy individuals ages 2 to 49, is all quadrivalent.
Federal health officials this year are emphasizing immunization with FluMist for children ages 2 to 8.
Doing so can help cut down on flu-related school absenteeism and also reduce the community spread of influenza which largely happens through children, researchers have found.
“If you vaccinate them, you vaccinate the community,” DeBruycker said.
Infants older than
6 months, children, older adults and anyone with a chronic condition are especially urged to get immunized this fall. But the flu vaccine is for anyone who wants to reduce their risk of coming down with flu, Zondervan said.
“There are so many options in the community for people to receive flu vaccine. The key is it doesn’t matter where you get it. You should get it,” she said.
