Health Check: Rhode Island prepares for flu season

Special Section: Swine Flu

The seasonal flu shot is available weeks earlier this year in hopes of getting as many people immunized as possible in advance of the H1N1 vaccine.

Rhode Island has reported more than 200 confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus this year.  Seventy-five people have been hospitalized and three have died—all of them younger with underlying medical conditions.

As a new school year begins, state health officials are working with administrators and parents to help prevent and monitor any major outbreaks.

Rhode Island’s H1N1 response team has been monitoring the swine flu situation in the state for months.

While we saw a few cases in August, it was “clearly significantly down from June and July, and so we seem to have seen a break. It was a spike in June of H1N1 here and it followed the normal curve.“ said Dr. David Gifford, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health.

Schools in other parts of the country are already seeing swine flu spread.

“I think we won’t see the spread right away here, but you know, we’ll have to wait and see,“ Gifford said.

In the meantime, members of the response team are working with local schools and colleges.

“They’ve been working on planning for how to distribute the vaccine,“ Gifford said.

School children in our area will be among the first to get it.

“We’re going to be getting it right as it comes off the manufacturing line. So, we’ll be getting it every week starting in October right through December,“ Gifford said.

Gifford offered these words for people with concerns about the safety of the new vaccine.

“This H1N1 vaccine, it’s being made by the same people who make the seasonal influenza, using the exact same protocol, following the exact same steps,“ Dr. David Gifford said. “I mean the best way to prevent it is to get the vaccine.“

The bottom line is this: wash hands or use alcohol gels often, sneeze into the arm, and stay home when sick.

Letters will be going out to parents soon with advice on how to protect their children and how to encourage them to have their child immunized against the swine flu during upcoming clinics at schools.