Health center loading up on vaccines designed for children aged 3 to 18.
Here's an interesting final paragraph in a Korea Times article from Tuesday about raising the flu alert to "red":
Health authorities said they will advance vaccinations of all school children by one week or two, and stockpile 11 million dosages of anti-viral drugs.
And buried in the Joongang Ilbo today:
In another flu-related development yesterday, the Korea Food and Drug Administration approved flu vaccination for children aged between 3 and 18 starting next Wednesday.
Those under age 9 will be given two shots to help develop enough antibodies to fight the illness.
A few other figures worth noting; from that same Korea Times article:
The country had maintained its "orange" alert status since July 21 but decided to raise it as an average of 8,857 people caught the new flu per day last week, up from 4,420 tallied for the week before. A total of 42 people have died in South Korea from the flu since mid-August.
Government efforts will be focused on coping with serious flu cases and vaccinating about 35 percent of the population as soon as possible to safeguard public health, the ministry said.
The Herald put the number of dead at 45 yesterday. Regarding school closures, here's what the Korea Times had to say a few days ago:
Five more Koreans died from the influenza A virus over the weekend, raising the country's death toll to 40. Since the first local outbreak in May, the new flu has forced the temporary closure of schools and delayed public gatherings. More than 400 schools across the country remain closed as the new flu is highly contagious among children.
The guidelines say if more than two classes in a certain grade are closed, all students in the same year must stay at home. If more than two grades of students have their classes suspended, the school is allowed to shutdown.
Also, if a district has over 30 percent of its schools close because of the flu, all schools in the district can be closed after Seoul's top educator discusses the matter with school headmasters, parents' groups and health authorities there.
Elementary schools and kindergartens can close their doors for up to seven days, while middle and high schools can close for a maximum of five days.
However, kindergartens and schools that have students vulnerable to the virus, including disabled children, can suspend a class even when they don't meet the guidelines.
Check the earlier posts
* "More schools may close because of swine flu."
* "Hagwon, more public schools, to close?"
* "More cases of swine flu, more deaths."
for more information and commentary.
5 comments:
I'll take my chances with the flu. The only way they will stick me with a needle filled with that vaccine is if I am already dead.
Today I was told by a Korean friend that China developed their own vaccine to swine flu using traditional herbs. Is there any truth to this?
Chip,
A vaccine matches specific flu antigens (the H and the N you hear a lot about). This primes your immune system to be on the look out for any foreign body with those antigens. So unless the herbs contain the antigens, I think this is just rumor.
Many yearly flu shots contain an H1N1 vaccine. Other than swine flu in the late 1970s, there's not been a noted risk. The vaccine is made the same way every year. It's like you make a car the same way every year. You know the cars safety record. The only thing you change is the color.
If the implication is "it's herbs therefore natural therefore safer" that's a fallacy. Hemlock is an herb.
Gillian,
You're free to take your chances but the goal of a vaccine program is less about protecting people who can normally fight off a flu and more about building a ring of immunity around those who can't and especially those who can't get the vaccine for specific health conditions.
There's an altruism component to all vaccines programs. Just as there's an altruism component to, say, picking up your trash after camping. You might never return to that spot but you try to leave it like you found it so strangers can enjoy it. Healthy people like me get a flu vaccine so I don't sneeze, transfer the virus to a table at starbucks, and then a pregnant woman gets it.
Clinical data indicate flu vaccines present a 1 in a million risk of complications and a 1 in 10,000 chance of death.
Surely if you had a child, you'd use a car seat. You use a car seat because the sober risk/benefit analysis indicates a small child is safer in a car seat. Certainly there are accidents where a child seat might increase a child's danger. Say an impact that's survivable if the child is simply buckled in but a fire starts. The extra time it takes to get a child out of a car seat results in the child's death. But the chances of that kind of accident is less than the chances of an accident where the child will have added protection.
||Clinical data indicate flu vaccines present a 1 in a million risk of complications and a 1 in 10,000 chance of death. ||
To be clear, by that I meant getting the flu itself presents a 1 in 10,000 chance of death.
Wow, Puffin Watch. Thank you for such a quick and detailed response.
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