H1N1 vaccine may do little to prevent pandemic
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 10/22/2009
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Although physicians are urging individuals to get H1N1 vaccines, Purdue research has found the vaccines will only help approximately 6 percent of the population.
Purdue researchers gathered data from the Center for Disease Control examining how many individuals have been affected by the virus as well as when the vaccine would be released. They then came up with a model to determine how the vaccine would affect the number of people ultimately infected by the virus, said Sherry Towers, a graduate student.
“If our model is correct, the vaccination program will reduce the number of people infected by about 6 percent,” she said. “Even though this sounds like a small number, it translates to potentially several thousand lives that will be saved by vaccination.”
Because the peak of the virus is occurring from now until early November, Tower predicts 60 percent of the public will be exposed to the virus. Around 25 percent of the people in the U.S. will fall ill before the end of the year.
The vaccination program would be more effective if it had started well before the H1N1 pandemic had gotten underway. Zhilan Feng, a professor in the department of mathematics, said many of the individuals who are infected with the virus won’t be affected by the vaccine.
“Our model predicts that the CDC’s vaccination campaign will likely not have a large effect on the total number of people ultimately infected by the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus.”
Although the vaccine may be retroactive, it is still important, Feng said. Students, especially those under the age of 24, should get vaccines.
“One of the potential benefits to vaccination is that this vaccine may provide cross-immunity to other strains of influenza,” he said, “and that it may help lessen the severity and duration of the flu.”
Tower said it would have been hard to administer the vaccine much earlier and the U.S. is working hard against the virus.
“Unfortunately, Mother Nature has presented us with a new, highly contagious influenza virus,” she said, “and it is making it difficult to distribute vaccines ahead of the peak of the epidemic.”