H1N1 Vaccine Will Arrive Too Late To Help Most Americans
Based on the results of a study by Purdue University, the H1N1 vaccine will arrive too late to help most Americans who will be infected during this flu season, according to The Washington Times.
The study also estimates that the virus will infect about 60 percent of the U.S. population, although only about 25 percent of Americans will fall ill.
Published Oct. 15 in Eurosurveillance, a scientific journal devoted to epidemiology and the surveillance and control of communicable diseases, the study was conducted by Pudue professors Sherry Towers and Zhilan Feng.
“The model predicts that there will be a significant wave in autumn, with 63% of the population being infected, and that this wave will peak so early that the planned CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] vaccination campaign will likely not have a large effect on the total number of people ultimately infected by the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus,” the authors wrote in their study.
Professor Towers cautioned in a phone interview with The Washington Times that while enough of the U.S. population probably won’t get enough of the vaccine before or during the peak of the pandemic, that is no reason not to get protection.
“Based on our study alone it would be bad to discourage people from getting the vaccine, because what if our study is wrong,” she said.
She called some comments in the press “a lot of hysteria. In reality, the overwhelming majority of people getting sick are going to have a mild illness.”
