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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified health care workers as a priority group for H1N1 vaccination. You and your staff should get vaccinated for the H1N1 flu and soon. Why?
- Health care personnel are likely to be exposed to the novel H1N1 influenza and spread it to patients, family, coworkers, and friends. Yet fewer than half of the health care workers in the United States are immunized each year for the seasonal flu.
- The H1N1 vaccine is safe. This is a safe vaccine that has been tested in adults and children and is produced in the same manner as the seasonal flu vaccine. The National Institutes of Health is conducting a number of studies across the country at special vaccine evaluation sites it has had set up for 40 to 60 years, and it has enrolled several thousand patients in those studies. The clinical trial sites include the Baylor College of Medicine and The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. No deaths, serious adverse events, or adverse events of special interest have been reported in these early trials. Local discomfort, headache, and fever have been reported. But nearly all events were mild to moderate in intensity. The safety of the H1N1 flu vaccine and seasonal flu vaccines are constantly monitored through the National Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and other CDC studies.
- It is essential that each health care worker receive his or her vaccination for H1N1 as soon as possible. Health care workers who are healthy, not pregnant, and under age 50 can receive LAIV (FluMist®), which is available in more communities right now. Patients and colleagues in your community will need your continued care for many weeks to come.
TMA Influenza Resources
Last Published: 10/27/2009 Print this page
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