Major Finding: Only 37% of physicians and other health care workers were vaccinated against the pandemic virus.
Data Source: CDC data provided to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee.
Disclosures: Dr. Weinberg disclosed serving as a consultant to MedImmune, Astellas, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck & Co. Inc.
VAIL, COLO. — Acceptance of the pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine by U.S. health care workers was, in a word, “terrible,” Dr. Adriana Weinberg declared.
A mere 37% of physicians and other health care workers were vaccinated against the pandemic virus, Dr. Weinberg reported at the annual conference on pediatric infectious diseases sponsored by the Children's Hospital, Denver.
Uptake of the vaccine by two notably high-risk patient groups—pregnant women, and children and adolescents aged 6 months to 17 years—was equally poor at 38% and 37%, respectively, said Dr. Weinberg, professor of medicine, pediatrics, and pathology, and medical director of the clinical virology laboratory at the University of Colorado Hospital, also in Denver. These data were provided to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among parents and other care providers for infants younger than 6 months, vaccine acceptance was even worse, at 14%.
Moreover, only 25% of adults aged 24-64 years with immunosuppression or other chronic medical conditions placing them at elevated risk for increased flu morbidity got vaccinated. That was essentially the same rate as in the overall U.S. population, including both high-priority and non–high-priority individuals.
In several studies, the main reason cited by health care workers and pregnant women for not accepting the vaccine was fear of side effects, especially Guillain-Barré syndrome, which was an issue with the 1976 swine flu vaccine. The safety concerns proved baseless this time around, as evidenced by consistently reassuring findings from three separate sources: the Vaccine Safety Datalink, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and the Emerging Infections Program.
As a result of this low uptake, many millions of soon-to-expire doses of pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza monovalent vaccine are being destroyed.
One audience member said the reason more families in his practice didn't get vaccinated against H1N1 was not fear of side effects; it was that he didn't get shipments of the vaccine until after the second and as it turned out, final, wave of the 2009 pandemic had passed.
Dr. Weinberg agreed that lack of timely vaccine availability caused by long delays in the cumbersome manufacturing process was a huge problem. A potential solution would be to produce influenza vaccines in cell culture instead of eggs, something the Food and Drug Administration is very reluctant to allow, although one such flu vaccine was recently approved in Europe.
The vaccine being manufactured for the coming 2010-2011 flu season contains antigens for a pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza virus as well as a seasonal influenza A H3N2 Perth 2009 virus and an influenza B Brisbane 2008 virus.
“We do anticipate circulation of the pandemic H1N1 strain in the next flu season, but in the Southern Hemisphere, where influenza season is going on right now, there is very, very little pandemic H1N1. What predominates are the A H3N2 and the B Brisbane,” she said.
In the Southern Hemisphere's current flu season, the A H3N2 and the B Brisbane strains predominate.
Source DR. WEINBERG