Ads to promote flu vaccines

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Health is beginning a statewide media campaign to encourage people to get flu vaccines, officials announced Wednesday.

The effort will include ads on television, radio, newspapers and outdoor advertising. A 30-second television ad featuring Gov. Mitch Daniels and state Health Commissioner Judy Monroe will begin airing Monday.

“We are doing everything we can think of to make sure Hoosiers young and old are protected against the flu,” Daniels said.

The television commercial not only encourages people to get the seasonal flu vaccination, but says pregnant women, children and young adults should also get the H1N1 flu vaccine.

“Both are safe and effective for your family,” Monroe says in the ad. “Don’t get the flu, don’t spread the flu.”

About 1,100 Indiana residents die each year from pneumonia and the seasonal flu.

Monroe said that of the flu cases reported so far in Indiana, 98 percent have been the H1N1 flu variety, also known as H1N1. But most of the cases have been mild so far, Monroe said.

Monroe said the flu season usually starts in the first week of October, but Indiana already is in its second wave of the H1N1 flu. She said there could be a third wave come January and February.

“We don’t know how much seasonal influenza we’re going to see this year, so there is a potential that the seasonal plus the H1N1, during the peak of the winter, it could be a very hard flu season,” Monroe said.

Indiana began receiving the nasal mist vaccine for H1N1 flu this week and Monroe said earlier that 28,700 doses of that form of vaccine were due to arrive at health departments around the state by the end of the week.

The nasal mist is available only for healthy persons ages 2 to 49 who are not pregnant. When an injectable form becomes available in a few weeks, the target groups to receive it will include pregnant women, people ages 6 months to 24 and those who care for them, and older people who have chronic medical conditions.

In the coming months, Indiana will receive about 4 million doses of both types of vaccine, enough for about a third of the state’s population of 6.38 million people. Two doses are recommended for children ages 9 and under.