Heard China may have developed a single dose H1N1 vaccine shot.

The HHS issued a new report ... they now believe a single H1N1 dose MAY BE SUFFICIENT for most adults. That would be very good news, but somehow doesn't boost my confidence in their findings.

Remember you need a separate shot for the "normal" flu variation.

The Department of Health and Human Services Center for Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has announced a new resource for community and faith-based organizations:

H1N1 Flu: A Guide for Community & Faith-based Organizations.

You can download the guide here:

Community and faith-based organizations are essential partners in comprehensive state and local flu response, and this guide was created to support them this flu season. The guide provides specific action steps that community and faith-based organizations can take to help keep communities healthy during flu season, including:

• Communicating important information about flu
• Supporting vaccination efforts
• Linking vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations to vital information and resources

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section A. Community and Faith-based Involvement

What can CFBOs do to help people stay healthy during the 2009-2010 flu season?
How can my organization create effective partnerships for the 2009-2010 flu season?

Section B. Vaccine Distribution

When will the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine be available?
Do I need both the seasonal flu vaccine and the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine?
Who should get the seasonal flu vaccine?
What are the target groups for the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine?
Should senior citizens be vaccinated for 2009 H1N1 flu?
Where will the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine be available?
What about the use of antivirals to treat flu?
How can my organization support 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine distribution efforts?

Section C. Communication

How can my organization communicate effectively about flu?

Section D. Vulnerable and Hard-to-Reach Populations

What special challenges do vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations face?
What can my organization do to help vulnerable and hard-to-reach people in my community?
My organization supports homeless and emergency shelters. How can we protect the health of our clients, staff, and volunteers?

Section E. Participation in Community Response

How can my organization support increased needs for medical personnel?
How can my organization’s facility be used during the 2009 H1N1 flu response?

Section F. Meetings and Religious Gatherings

Section G. Mental Health and Stigma

How can my organization provide emotional comfort and support to my community during the 2009-2010 flu season?
How can my organization prevent and stop the spread of stigma around 2009 H1N1 flu?

Section H. Childcare Organizations and Youth Programs

Will schools be dismissed during the 2009-2010 flu season?
How can my organization support efforts to prevent flu transmission in schools?
How can my childcare or after-school program support the 2009 H1N1 flu response?

Section I. Work Environments

How should my organization’s work environment change during the 2009-2010 flu season?

Appendices

Appendix A: About Flu

Appendix B: Resources

Appendix C: Lessons Learned from the Minnesota Immunization Networking Initiative (MINI): Delivering Flu Vaccine in Non-traditional Settings

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If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

The latest from cnn.com

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the "rapid increase in illness" from the H1N1 influenza virus.

"The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities," Obama said in a statement.

"Thus, in recognition of the continuing progression of the pandemic, and in further preparation as a nation, we are taking additional steps to facilitate our response."

The president signed the declaration late Friday and announced it Saturday.

Calling the emergency declaration "an important tool in our kit going forward," one administration official called Obama's action a "proactive measure that's not in response to any new development."

Another administration official said the move is "not tied to the current case count" and "gives the federal government more power to help states" by lifting bureaucratic requirements -- both in treating patients and moving equipment to where it's most needed.

The officials didn't want their names used because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Obama's action allows Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "to temporarily waive or modify certain requirements" to help health care facilities enact emergency plans to deal with the pandemic.

Those requirements are contained in Medicare, Medicaid and state Children's Health Insurance programs, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule.

Since the H1N1 flu pandemic began in April, millions of people in the United States have been infected, at least 20,000 have been hospitalized and more than 1,000 have died, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Frieden said that having 46 states reporting widespread flu transmission is traditionally the hallmark of the peak of flu season. To have the flu season peak at this time of the year is "extremely unusual."

The CDC said 16.1 million doses of H1N1, or swine flu, vaccine had been made by Friday -- 2 million more than two days earlier. About 11.3 million of those had been distributed throughout the United States, Frieden said.

"We are nowhere near where we thought we would be," Frieden said, acknowledging that manufacturing delays have contributed to less vaccine being available than expected. "As public health professionals, vaccination is our strongest tool. Not having enough is frustrating to all of us."

Frieden said that while the way vaccine is manufactured is "tried and true," it's not well-suited for ramping up production during a pandemic because it takes at least six months. The vaccine is produced by growing weakened virus in eggs.

Here are some pamphlets that were recently released by the CDC...

Seasonal and H1N1 Flu: A Guide for Parents:


2009 Influenza Vaccine Information:

_________________
If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

Looks like the government has set up a website for this pandemic. You can visit http://www.flu.gov for quite a bit of information on H1N1, vaccines and other flu related information.

_________________
If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

CDC's Soaring H1N1 Death Totals

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Thursday updated estimates of the number of H1N1 infections and deaths in the U.S. According to the new figures, about 4,000 Americans, including 540 children, have died of H1N1 flu, and 2 million people have been infected since April, when the novel flu virus first surfaced. The new death toll, which encompasses data through Oct. 17, represents a tripling of CDC estimates issued just last week; the number of deaths in children was quadruple last week's figures. But the increase does not mean that the disease has suddenly become more deadly or severe, according to health officials, who say they are not surprised by the higher numbers.

Until now, the CDC's weekly updates on the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the disease have included only laboratory-confirmed cases of H1N1 — a figure that agency officials were well aware captured only a sliver of the actual population of affected Americans. Many patients who come down with flu never go to a hospital or see a doctor and never get an official diagnosis. Many other flu patients who are admitted to the hospital may not be tested for H1N1 and may be treated under a different diagnosis. They may die from a complication, such as pneumonia, which is not reported as a case of influenza.

The CDC's new figures are based on an algorithm for estimating the true impact of H1N1 on the U.S. population; it takes into account the patients left out of the official lab-confirmed tally. "We know that a number of deaths that we're seeing are occurring outside of the hospital where testing is not possible," Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters at a briefing on Thursday. "We also know that not every patient with influenza gets a diagnosis of flu. For influenza it's virtually impossible to find every case with a lab test. So the estimation method we are using now we believe gives a bigger picture, a probably more accurate picture of the full scope of the pandemic."

Schuchat stressed that the numbers do not reflect any change in the spread of the virus or the course of the disease. The researchers simply applied a unique multiplier to each set of data in order to come up with the estimates. With respect to the number of cases of H1N1 infection, for example, CDC scientists believe that for every one case that is reported and confirmed with a laboratory test, there are 79 additional ones that go unrecorded. For every documented case of H1N1 hospitalization, there are an estimated 2.7 that are missed.

The CDC's multiplier formula comes from analysis of data from its Emerging Infectious Program (EIP), a survey of 62 counties in 10 states across the U.S. The data from these sentinel sites are then extrapolated to the general U.S. population.

"These estimates give us a better [sense] of how much disease, hospitalization and death there is than we would get by just counting individual laboratory confirmed cases," says Schuchat. "It isn't a switch or a change from the way we've been counting cases so far. What we're really trying to do is give you a bigger picture."

The numbers underscore the importance of vaccination in the effort to curb the spread of the disease, says Schuchat. They also support health officials' decision to target high-risk populations for the first immunizations. Of all hospitalized Americans, more than half were between ages 18 and 64, while only 9% were 65 or older. That distribution is the opposite of the way seasonal flu usually affects a community; in that case, 90% of hospitalizations are usually among the elderly.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1938909,00.html?cnn=yes

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Please don't take my avatar to seriously. I'm really not a bible thumping armageddon prophet.

WalMart is now offering $15 H1N1 vaccines for its customers. For more info check out: http://flushotsusa.walmart.com/.

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Please don't take my avatar to seriously. I'm really not a bible thumping armageddon prophet.

I checked the site...no scheduled flu shot clinics in my area...but thanks to having a newborn I can get the vaccine at my doc's office.

_________________
If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

Nearly 90% flu in China last week were A/H1N1: ministry
www.chinaview.cn 2009-11-18 21:07:37 Print

BEIJING, Nov. 18 (Xinhua)

The A/H1N1 influenza cases accounted for 89.4 percent of all flu cases reported in the Chinese mainland last week, almost 3 percentage points higher than the figure of the previous week, China's Ministry of Health said Wednesday.

The mainland reported 10,828 cases of A/H1N1 flu from Nov. 9 to 15, with 28 deaths, said a notice issued on the ministry's website.

The ministry advised the public to keep warm in cold and snowy weather, wash hands frequently and keep rooms ventilated.

The ministry also said starting from this Wednesday, it would update A/H1N1 flu information only once a week. Previously, it offered updates three times a week.

Latest figures from the ministry showed that almost 70,000 A/H1N1 flu cases had been reported in the mainland by Sunday, with53 deaths in total, and that about 16.6 million people had been vaccinated.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/18/content_12486376.htm

_________________
Please don't take my avatar to seriously. I'm really not a bible thumping armageddon prophet.