CC Prepares for Flu Season with Immunization Program

Episode #27
Uploaded:  Sept. 8, 2009
Running Time:  5:14

SCHMALFELDT:  From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.  Flu season will soon be upon us, and this year, there's a twist.  In addition to the regular seasonal flu, the prospect of H1N1 flu is on the horizon as well.  Preventing transmission of either strain of influenza needs to be at the top of everyone's priorities - especially for health care workers.

HENDERSON:  It is a particularly important issue for health care providers who work in the Clinical Center who have face-to-face contact with patients.  Many of our patients are severely immunosupressed and influenza for those patients may well be a life-threatening illness.  So it is very important for our clinical care providers and individuals who have direct contact with patients to be immunized.

SCHMALFELDT:  That was Dr. David Henderson, deputy director for clinical care and associate director for quality assurance and hospital epidemiology at the NIH Clinical Center.  According to Dr. Henderson, the NIH Clinical Center has an enviable influenza immunization rate among its patient care providers - 89.7 percent, compared to less than 50 percent at other hospitals nationwide.  He said that figure should be a source of pride for Clinical Center employees.

HENDERSON:  One of the great things about working in the Clinical Center is we get to work with smart people and when you present the data to smart people and explain why and have a solid, scientific rationale for doing things, they most often do the right thing.

SCHMALFELDT:  Some of the more common reasons folks give for not getting a flu shot include being worried about side effects, religious reasons, and the unfounded fear that getting a flu shot means you will get the flu.  Dr. Henderson said that aside from those who have egg allergies - since the vaccine is created using chicken eggs - and religious reasons, the excuses people give for not having a flu shot just don't hold water.

HENDERSON:  You occasionally will get a sore spot on your arm where you have been vaccinated and that is usually an indication that you're having a very good immune response to the vaccine.  So that is, generally speaking, good news for you as a vaccine recipient.  Occasionally individuals get very mild constitutional symptoms.  They might feel just a little bit off.  That is also a good sign.  Back when I was a boy and Old Shep was a pup, the vaccine was a live virus vaccine, so when you got the vaccine you actually got a mild case of influenza.  Several people my age remember that vaccine and think that the current vaccine is the same vaccine, but it is not.  The new vaccine has nothing alive in it and cannot produce a new illness because there is not anything alive in it.

SCHMALFELDT:  In addition to getting the flu shot, Henderson said folks should adopt good flu hygiene etiquette.  That includes hand washing with soap and water, using alcohol-based hand sanitizers, not sneezing or coughing into your hands and staying home if you begin to show signs of the flu.  The extra twist this year is the advent of the H1N1 flu.  Although the Clinical Center's flu vaccine program is set to begin in October, the vaccine currently available for the seasonal flu will not protect against H1N1.  The vaccine for that strain is currently under production and will likely be available later in the fall, as Dr. Henderson explained.

HENDERSON:  When we get it, we will make it available to that list of folks who have face-to-face contact with patients first.  We don't know yet how many shots that vaccine will require.  The seasonal influenza vaccine, as is the case every year, requires only one shot.  But the new agent, the novel agent H1N1 vaccine, because it is so different from other strains that most folks may have seen, may actually require a booster dose.  It is possible that this year, health care workers or folks that are going to get both vaccines are going to have as many as three shots.

SCHMALFELDT:  For more information about the influenza vaccination program, or to find out more about the NIH Clinical Center, including news about the medical research going on here every day, log on to http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov.  From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.  In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Nicole Martino at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
 

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