Flu vaccines now available
Stephanie Welsman, left, a public health nurse, gives Irene Kaman a flu vaccine during a free clinic which was held on Thursday. Another flu vaccine clinic will be held on Thursday, Nov. 5 at the Seniors’ Drop-in Centre on Brown St. The vaccines are not for H1N1 Influenza, as those vaccines will be given later.
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Updated: November 04, 2009 3:10 PM
Vaccines for the H1N1 flu virus are now available and officials with the Interior Health Authority are urging people to get immunized against the disease.
“It’s not a disease I’d like to come down with,” said medical health officer Paul Hasselback.
The virus is a respiratory disease which is spread from person to person.
Because it is a new virus, few people have developed immunity to it.
Symptoms include sudden onset of respiratory illness with fever, cough, headache, aches and fatigue. Other symptoms may include runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Most people start to improve within three or four days of the first symptoms and have recovered within a week. Coughing can continue longer.
Those who have difficulty in breathing, chest pain, high temperature, drowsiness, severe vomiting or a cough with blood or green phlegm should seek further medical advice.
People with underlying health conditions and pregnant women are at risk for more serious illness and complications.
Those at highest priority for the vaccine are pregnant women in the second half of pregnancy, those under 64 with chronic conditions, children under five, those with household contacts with children under six months of age and those who are in regular contact with people whose immune systems are compromised.
To date, there have been 199 severe cases of the disease provincewide, including 15 deaths, three of them in the Interior Health Authority’s region.
Hasselback said the disease is not as severe as previous pandemics in the 20th century. The last serious pandemic was the Hong Kong flu in 1968, with one million deaths worldwide.
For further information on the virus, visit www.interiorhealth.ca/H1N1.aspx.
Getting immunized
Vaccines for the H1N1 flu virus are available in communities around B.C.
In Summerland, a flu vaccine clinic will be held at the Seniors’ Drop-in Centre, 9710 Brown St. on Thursday, Nov. 5, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Seasonal and H1N1 vaccines will be available.
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