The information blitz on H1N1

There is no shortage of information about H1N1. By now, we all know that younger people are at greater risk. We know that 50 million doses have been ordered for Canadians. We know that Health Canada’s approval of the vaccine is based on European trials because testing in Canada is just beginning now and results of those tests won’t be know until late November at the earliest. We know we should wash our hands often, use hand sanitizer and cough in our sleeves.
As of October 17 of this year, the World Health organization reports that there have been more than 414,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of H1N1. The death count, as reported to WHO, is almost at 5,000.
In Canada, there have been 7,000 recorded cases of H1N1, with about 90 deaths reported. In the Kingston, Belleville and Ottawa area, about 21 schools are described as being in “outbreak” mode.
Once you have a school outbreak, a community outbreak is about two weeks behind, says the Eastern Ontario Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Paul Roumeliotis.
It makes sense, it seems, to host vaccination clinics in schools. That said, note that many vaccination clinics take place in schools. At this point, after an avalanche of information, we all desperately want to avoid getting sick and certainly want to believe that health authorities are acting wisely when they advise that vaccination is the best defence against H1N1.
There are always skeptics. News items have focused on the worry about Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a potentially life-threatening neurological disorder, which emerged as a side-effect in a 1976 swine flu vaccine effort. Although there was evidence that it might be linked to the vaccine, findings were never declared and today, experts say the new H1N1 virus differs from the 1976 version and point out that vaccine technology has improved.
But only 50 per cent of Canadians say they plan to receive the vaccine for H1N1 at upcoming clinics.  If that is the case, perhaps we can share some of our excess vaccine doses with countries in need.
The World Health Organization said last week that pharmaceutical firms can produce only three billion doses of swine flu vaccines per year, covering less than half of the global population. In the United States, about 30 million doses are anticipated, less than the 40-million figure announced earlier. A nation-wide shortage of the vaccine is expected. It was apparently unclear as late as July of this year that the H1N1 flu strain would be dominant this winter.
To recap: about half of us are sufficiently concerned about H1N1 that we will receive the vaccine.  But some would still argue that we are focusing our attention in the wrong place. 
One has only to do research to discover the millions whose lives are affected by AIDS, for example. In 2008, it was estimated that more than 4,000 people died from AIDS every day in Africa.
It is difficult to argue with information like that.