Flu Shots for Kids .. 11-14-98


>Medical researchers are recommending that schoolchildren across the

>nation get annual

>flu shots to help control the rampant spread of the virus this winter. 

>It's an unusual public health message, they acknowledge. Physicians

>typically reserve their annual allocations of the influenza vaccine for

>people who might die otherwise, especially the elderly.  Last year,

>serious flu outbreaks were recorded in 46 states, killing 20,000 people.

>But virtually none of the victims were children, researchers said. 

>

>But that doesn't mean that children are immune. In a new study being

>presented Thursday at the annual infectious diseases meeting in Denver,

>researchers said 45 percent of all schoolchildren get the flu, and they

>pass it along to adult family members and daycare providers.  Many of

>the adults aren't vaccinated either, and the flu spreads quickly through

>the general population.  Vaccinating kids would reduce the flu's impact

>on adults' lost work hours, productivity and wages, while potentially

>boosting students' performance by reducing sick days, said researchers

>at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. 

>

>``Parents who would miss work if their children got the flu should talk

>to their pediatricians about getting the vaccine right now,'' said Dr.

>Mary D. Nettleman, lead

>author of the study.  ``More widespread use of the vaccine in school-age

>children would have substantial benefits to society,'' she said. 

>Nettleman said a family would save $4 if a working parent took time off

>from a job and brought a child to the doctor for a $10 flu shot.  But if

>the shots were administered at a school or a community health fair, the

>average cost of $10 per vaccination would drop significantly. The

>related cost savings could run as high as $35 per child, she said. A

>projection of nationwide cost savings or reduction in school absences

>was not available, Nettleman said. 

>

>More researchers are breaking with tradition this year and touting the

>preventive benefits of flu shots for children.  At a recent national

>microbiology meeting, Dr. Michael Marcy of Kaiser Foundation Hospital in

>Panorama City, Calif., said expanding annual vaccinations to children

>would ``go a long way towards stopping flu transmission.''  The vaccine

>is made from three strains of the flu virus that change annually. This

>year's strains are dubbed A/Beijing, A/Sydney and B/Beijing. The vaccine

>is made from particles of the dead strains that generate an immune

>response, but cannot

>give you the flu.  Eighty million doses of vaccine were to be available

>by this month despite some initial difficulties reproducing the A

>strains in the laboratory. 

>

>Vaccine production would have to be increased if schoolchildren were

>widely vaccinated, officials said.  More help is on the horizon in the

>form of new anti-viral drugs. 

>Researchers are testing a flu vaccine in a painless nasal spray on

>15,000 children

>ages 18 months to 18 years in the Texas towns of Temple and Belton. 

>Study directors believe the spray vaccine may protect most of the

>children, and reduce adults' doctor visits by more than half.  At the

>end of the flu season next spring, researchers will compare the results

>against the flu rate in Austin, 60 miles away, where the nasal spray was

>not tested.  

>