H1N1 vaccine directed toward Indiana colleges

State health officials said Wednesday they are directing more H1N1 flu vaccine to Indiana’s college campuses in hopes of preventing or reducing a third H1N1 flu outbreak in the state early next year.

State health commissioner Judy Monroe said Indiana’s second H1N1 flu wave, which peaked in late October, began about the time students returned to campuses for fall semester.

Since that peak, hospitalizations and visits to emergency rooms have generally declined each week. Monroe said that decline continued last week, with a 17 percent drop in hospitalizations of people with flu symptoms.

To head off a third H1N1 flu outbreak that could start in January, she said the state is sending more H1N1 flu vaccine to counties with the state’s big college campuses to immunize more students before they leave for the winter holiday break.

Monroe said the goal is to immunize as many college students as possible before the winter break so they don’t return to campus ill or spread the virus during their travels.

She said there’s “a window of opportunity” for the state to reach those students during the next few weeks.

“They will be traveling, they’ll be on planes, they’ll be visiting family members,” Monroe said. “We feel that it’s really important to get that group vaccinated.”

After fall classes began in August and September, Monroe said Indiana’s highest rates of H1N1 flu were found among college-age students. To date, 84 percent of the state’s confirmed H1N1 flu cases have been among patients between the ages of 6 months and 24 years.

Monroe said additional H1N1 flu vaccines shipments are being sent to Monroe, Tippecanoe, Delaware and Vigo counties – the homes, respectively, of Indiana, Purdue, Ball State and Indiana State universities.

The state has already directed another 10,000 doses of H1N1 flu vaccine to Monroe County, home of IU’s 42,000-student Bloomington campus. The state is also looking to direct more vaccine to counties with smaller campuses.

Monroe said that as of Nov. 17, 564,094 doses of vaccine had been administered in Indiana. The state has to date ordered 1,225,200 doses.

Of the vaccines administered, 61 percent have gone to Indiana residents in the 6 months-to-24-years age group. Forty percent of the state’s health care and emergency medical workers have been vaccinated, as have about 22 percent of pregnant Indiana women.

Last week, eight Indiana residents died from H1N1 flu, bringing the state’s total to 33.
Two of those deaths were age 65 or older – the first time the state had seen H1N1 flu deaths in that age group.