H1N1 Influenza Hasn’t Left Yet — And May Be Back

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief emeritus

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) press briefing yesterday on pandemic H1N1 influenza, spokesperson Dr. Anne Schuchat noted that while H1N1 activity was down, the virus was still more prevalent than what is normally seen for influenza. Warning that people should still get immunized against it, she also noted, “We also saw an uptick in pneumonia or influenza deaths in this past week.  And that isn’t something that we necessarily see around the Christmas holiday.”

The CDC is worrying about a growing complacency among the public. To illustrate the need for continued vigilance and immunizations, she showed this graph (also reproduced below) mapping the deaths from the 1957 influenza activity. You’ll note there was an initial wave in fall 1957, followed by a lull in which deaths decreased, and then a resurgence in which the number of deaths peaked in March 1958, close to the level in the first wave.

Hit it while it’s down. According to Schuchat, the lull (where we currently are) “essentially gave the all-clear whistle in that [1957] December/January time period.” “They had vaccine,” she noted, “but they didn’t encourage its use.” For now, she said, the message is this: “The illness is down.  There’s plenty of vaccine.  It’s a key window of opportunity. We don’t want to repeat the story from 1957.”

Nuff said.

H1N1 Flu Vaccine: Remembering Why I Became a Nurse

By Shawn Kennedy, editorial director

Last week, I got away from my desk, computer, and stacks of paper and (briefly) became a “real nurse” again. As a member of my county’s Medical Reserve Corps, I volunteered to help administer H1N1 flu vaccine at a local school. Our vaccinees were children over two years and young adults up to 24. We were distributing FluMist, a live attenuated vaccine administered intranasally (see the article on FluMist in the October AJN).  The applicator looks like just like a syringe, but without a needle.

I was impressed with how organized the process was. Employees of the health department were there controlling traffic, fetching supplies, inputting data, interviewing new arrivals and helping them complete forms. A physician was on hand to screen individuals if there were any questions about whether someone should receive the vaccine.

I was one of 20 RNs, most of whom worked as county public health nurses. We had a brief reminder of the vaccine administration procedure (we had received instructions and a link to a video demonstration about administering the vaccine the prior week), and then were sent to our stations at tables in the large gymnasium. There was a light-hearted and almost casual atmosphere—the key to it, I think, was that there were no needles involved. Such looks of relief when I took the rubber tip off the applicator!

I had just one solitary young man come to my table. He looked embarrassed and a little nervous, judging from his leg twitching up and […]

2016-11-21T13:20:50-05:00November 30th, 2009|career|0 Comments

FDA Commissioner’s Letter to Health Care Professionals About H1N1 Vaccine Safety

fluIMAGEBelow we reproduce a letter from Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to all U.S. health care professionals. It explains why the FDA (and most experts) believe the current H1N1 vaccine is as safe as any of the seasonal flu vaccines that are produced using the same process. Many nurses remain reluctant to get the vaccine, as are many patients. Some we’ve heard from have changed their minds as they’ve seen the sudden and devastating effects of this virus on patients in their hospitals. We hope this letter will provide some context for thinking about the current H1N1 vaccine, and for addressing the concerns of patients.

Dear Healthcare Professional,

I am writing first to thank you for your extraordinary efforts during the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak. 

As this new infectious disease sweeps through communities across the country, you must juggle your usual patient care responsibilities with a special role in influenza response.  Delays in vaccine delivery and the persistence of myths about vaccination have not made your job any easier.  Thank you for rising to this public health challenge.

I am also writing to provide information that can be helpful as you talk to patients about the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccines — the best tools we have to prevent severe illness and death caused by the virus. 

As the […]

2016-11-21T13:21:06-05:00November 13th, 2009|Nursing|1 Comment

“Pitiable Indeed” – AJN Archives Reveal Nurse’s Firsthand Account of 1918 Flu

1918LetterDoSomething
The above is an excerpt from a North Dakota nurse’s vivid and painful letter to the editor about the Spanish influenza, published in the December 1918 issue of AJN. To read the entire letter, click here (and then click on the PDF link in the upper right corner of the page) or click on the excerpt itself. We’ve combed through our archives for articles dealing with various influenza epidemics and threats of epidemics, and found some fascinating material that puts what we’re currently going through in some perspective. To see the entire collection of articles, covering 1918 to the present, click here. (Note: some articles are free and some are accessible only to AJN subscribers. The older articles are available only in PDF format.)

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Marketers Honing In On Online Nurses

Internet Splat Map (jurvetson/via Flickr)

Nurses, you’re being watched: a marketing Website has an article on the growing influence of nurses online. Let us know what you think. Here’s an excerpt:

. . . Manhattan Research recently released a report about nurses online noting that approximately three out of four U.S. nurses recommend health websites to patients. The study notes that the average nurse spends eight hours per week online for professional purposes, which is just as much time as physicians, and almost all of them use the Internet in between patient consultations. Nurses are also proactive in researching medical product information specifically online – over eighty percent have visited a pharma, biotech, or device company website in the past year.

In addition to the prevalence of the Internet as a research and patient communication tool, nurses are continuing to find their unique voices online through a growing number of prominent nursing blogs such as Codeblog and Emergiblog which both share powerful stories of healthcare from the nurses’ point of view.

Also found today on the Web: […]
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