Swine Flu Epidemic Raises Flares

June 9, 2010 -- When Mexico began reporting cases of a mysterious new strain of influenza afflicting hundreds of people in April 2009, the response in Oregon was genuine worry.

 

The H1N1 virus, or “swine flu,” appeared to be as severe as the influenza epidemics this country experienced in 1918 and 1957 when thousands of people died, said Dr. Gary Oxman, director of Multnomah County’s Public Health Department. 

 

During the summer and fall of 2009, Oregon’s public health officials went into high gear. Governor Ted Kulongski issued an executive order giving state epidemiologist Dr. Mel Kohn the power to close schools; the Public Health Division launched an aggressive education campaign telling hospitals to be prepared for an influx of people with flu symptoms; and the media had a field day with nearly daily stories on how the swine flu would impact Oregonians. 

 

In the end, the epidemic ended up being far less severe. The latest data show that 1,430 people were hospitalized and 89 Oregonians died.

 

Nationally, between 195,000 and 403,000 people were hospitalized and up to 18,300 people died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Those numbers are a far cry from the thousands of cases during prior epidemics. And it’s left people wondering whether Oregon’s public health response was necessary and effective.

 

Many say it was.

 

Since it was difficult, if not impossible, to predict the severity of this epidemic, “It was appropriate to have a strong public health response,” said Dr. John Townes, epidemiologist at Oregon Health & Science University. 

 

Beating the drum was important, said Paul Cieslak, manager of Oregon’s Public Health Division’s acute and communicable disease prevention program. “It was certainly an epidemic.”

 

One major challenge was the inability to get enough swine flu vaccine. The disease peaked in October, but the vaccine wasn’t unavailable until December. “If we had it four months earlier, we could have done more,” Oxman said.

 

Public health officials faced difficulty getting the vaccine into the hands of medical providers, and there wasn’t enough to go around: OHSU only received 1,000 vaccines for its 8,000 medical personnel, Townes said.

 

Until this year, Oregon didn’t have funding to track the number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by influenza. Such data helps design appropriate public health responses. Because Oregon lacked such a system, officials “were catching up,” to determine who was hospitalized, Cieslak said. That, in turn, impacted vaccine distribution. The CDC gave the Public Health Division funding to start a tracking system in September 2009, but those funds dry up in August.   

 

Looking ahead, swine flu is expected to become the major strain of influenza when flu season hits. Public health officials don’t plan to respond differently. “The most important thing we can do is to encourage people to get vaccinated by increasing the number of flu clinics,” said Cieslak