Document text
34 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, December 16, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend December 8, 2004 Jackson County public health nurse Viki Barbour gives Klaus Warme of Medford his flu shot while he is still in his car at the county�s immunization clinic Tuesday. Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Flu shots on the fly Select group gets dose of rationed vaccination— all in record time By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune Drive-by flu shots came to Central Point Tuesday. Jackson County public health officials wanted to see how many people they could immunize in a single day if they had to respond to an incident of bioterrorism. For practice, they organized a mass flu-shot clinic at the Expo grounds and transformed the Padgham Pavilion into an immunization center. Every part of the plan was designed to move people through as quickly as possible. Nurses were even stationed in the parking lot to immunize people who couldn’t walk from their cars to the building. Klaus Warme, 66, of Medford got his flu shot while sitting in his Ford pickup with his wife, Marlene. "We’ve had lots of people with oxygen and walkers," said Viki Barbour, one of the parking lot nurses, as she gave Warme his flu shot. Advertisement One of those oxygen users, Lucille Deal of Gold Hill, appreciated not having to walk to get her flu shot. "I just pulled my jacket back and they did it," said Deal, 83. County officials originally scheduled a mass immunization clinic for late October to see whether they could give 5,000 flu shots in a day. That plan was torpedoed when half of the nation’s flu vaccine had to be destroyed and the remainder was rationed to states and counties with instructions to deliver it only to people who are most vulnerable to the influenza virus: generally seniors, infants and people with serious health problems. Those restrictions were still in place Tuesday, so the Expo crowd was distinctly senior. Many showed up early to avoid a long wait, and they weren’t disappointed. More than a dozen nurses were giving injections, and most people were in and out in 10 minutes or less. "It was a piece of cake," said Jean Thielges, 79, of Medford, who came with her husband, Rich. "We did about 200 in the first half hour," said Jackson Baures, bioterrorism coordinator for the health department. "We could have done more." The early surge tapered off fast, and by 10 a.m. some nurses were moved to other tasks. By day’s end, the crew had given only about 670 flu shots. Baures attributed Tuesday’s relatively sparse attendance to earlier efforts to distribute limited supplies of flu vaccine to physicians, who gave it to the patients who needed it most. "Most of the people who really needed it already got it," Baures said. Flu vaccine has not been available to most adults in good health since early October, when the shortage surfaced. In a typical year, adults in good health account for thousands of flu shots at doctors’ offices and workplace clinics across Jackson County. "If you opened this (clinic) up to everyone, I don’t know what it would look like," Baures said. The exercise may have fallen short of its original goal, but county health officials still learned some valuable lessons, said Dr. Jim Shames, Jackson County’s medical officer. "You can do any kind of emergency planning and get it all on paper, but until you actually do it you don’t know how it will work," Shames said. The glitches that surfaced Tuesday were mostly minor, Shames said, but they wouldn’t have been found without a real- life exercise. He noted, for example, that two-way radios couldn’t be heard inside the building because of the ambient noise. "We needed ear pieces," he observed. Overall, Shames said, the exercise was successful. "We wanted to see if we could do 500 people an hour," he said. "We could." County seeks to relax vaccine guidelines Jackson County public health officials will ask the federal government to allow them to give flu vaccine to adults in good health. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention restricted access to flu vaccine to high-risk groups (mostly seniors, toddlers and people with chronic illness) in early October. The restrictions were designed to ensure that the most needy people received the limited supplies of vaccine. Most of the local people in those groups who want a flu shot have now gotten one, said Dr. Jim Shames, the county’s medical officer. "We’re going to petition CDC to relax the guidelines," Shames said Tuesday during a mass immunization exercise at the Jackson County Expo Center. Shames noted that many people in the high-risk groups choose not to get a flu shot, and Jackson County could find itself with more vaccine than it needs to serve the high-risk groups. Additional supplies of vaccine are scheduled for delivery in January, Shames said, "but we won’t accept it until we can (use) it." CDC has been distributing injectable flu vaccine that is made from dead influenza virus. A weakened live vaccine administered as a nasal spray is available for people age 5 to 49 from 8 to 11:30 a.m. and from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at the county health department offices, 1005 E. Main St., Medford. Shames said the nasal-spray vaccine is generally given only to that specific age group because safety tests before its release were conducted on people in that age range. Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities