The state Department of Health and Human Services yesterday expanded its list of those who are eligible to receive the H1N1 flu vaccine, and it will have clinics to help vaccinate those people in the coming weeks.
The state had administered 78,435 doses of the vaccine as of last Friday, according to Dr. Jose Montero, director of public health.
The people who have been vaccinated belong to what he called the "first tier" of the state's vaccination strategy: pregnant women, children from 6 months to 18 years of age who have chronic health conditions that could expose them to complications of the H1N1 flu, and health care workers with direct patient contact.
The vaccine also now will be available to all children from 6 months to 5 years of age; the partners of pregnant women; anyone who directly and regularly cares for an infant younger than 6 months old; and those from 18 to 24 years of age who have underlying medical conditions.
Montero said those who have contact with infants daily, caring for them at home or in day care centers, need to be vaccinated because babies under 6 months old cannot be vaccinated.
"We need to protect them by vaccinating those around (infants)," Montero said.
The state has received 167,000 doses of the vaccine and expects to receive about 40,000 additional doses this week, Montero said. But he emphasized the word "expects."
"Until the actual delivery does happen, we really don't know," he said.
Montero said the numbers so far indicate the state has used about 60 percent of the vaccine received, but that reports of vaccinations can lag.
"We do expect those numbers to dramatically increase in the next couple of weeks as new reports come," he said.
So far, the vaccine has been administered by health care providers, Montero said, because the state believes they are the best people to identify those who need it most. But the state will launch clinics to help vaccinate those over 18 who fall into the newly added priority groups. Montero said the clinics will require appointments, but the vaccinations are free.
Information about the clinics will be available at www.dhhs.nh.gov, through the state's 211 flu hot line and at www.google.com/flushot by the end of the week.
The state will provide colleges with doses of the vaccine so they can be administered to 18- to 24-year-olds with chronic medical conditions, Montero said.
Pregnant women and those under 18 should still seek the vaccine first from their primary care doctors, who should have it available, Montero said.
The goal, he said, is to have all those most at risk for complications vaccinated first.
"It doesn't mean that we're going to get them vaccinated in one or two days," he said.
He said he hopes to open the vaccines to a third tier that includes all children and adults 25 to 64 with underlying medical conditions sometime in early December, depending on the demand among that group and the availability of the vaccine.
"More than half of the population of New Hampshire falls under one of the risk groups," he said.
"It is our duty to try to protect them first. It is our ethical mandate to do so."
Montero said the state does not follow flu cases, but instead tracks those who report "flu-like illnesses," making the number of people with H1N1 difficult to track. Of all the samples sent to state labs for testing, 40 percent were H1N1. The other 60 percent were not any strain of the flu, but other respiratory illnesses.
Over the last four weeks, there was a "huge increase" in the number of people going to hospitals because they suspected they had H1N1, Montero said. But there has not been an increase in the number of people hospitalized for the illness. Reports of illness have started to plateau, Montero said, but they could rise again.
"Flu seasons are that way," he said. "They go up a week and then they go down."
Those other respiratory illnesses that are causing 60 percent of the cases being tested by the state should be handled similarly to the flu, Montero said.
"If you are sick, stay home. Don't go to work," he said.
"Don't send your kids to school. That way we protect them and protect others from being exposed to whatever infection they have."
Montero stressed that any person age 24 or younger with a chronic medical condition should be vaccinated as soon as possible.
"Get them vaccinated. There is enough vaccine out there for those kids," he said.
"There should be no reason whatsoever for those populations not to be vaccinated."
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