Low turnout for flu shots

The Salt Lake Valley Health Department hoped to give as many as 8,000 flu shots Saturday.

Instead, the health department had the lowest turnout ever for its annual vaccination drive.

Saturday's event was the earliest flu-shot clinic the Salt Lake Valley Health Department has ever held, which may explain the low turnout. Officials had hoped to take advantage of an unusually ample supply of seasonal flu vaccine and the public's heightened interest in influenza in general since the outbreak of the new H1N1 strain this spring.

A turnout at two clinic sites by the 1 p.m. closing was at most 300 — the lowest in the department's history for a flu clinic.

"Maybe people just aren't thinking about flu shots because of the sunny, warm weather," said Audrey Stevenson, division director of family health services with the department. "People don't tend to think about the flu until they feel a chill in the air."

Perhaps people didn't queue up because they've already contracted flu fatigue — general malaise from thinking too much about the flu, given the offseason outbreak of H1N1, the so-called swine flu, this spring.

"But just because a novel virus has arrived doesn't mean the seasonal ones have gone away," Stevenson said. "They're always circulating and mutating and always with us."

Three forms of seasonal flu are the targets for vaccines this year, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vaccine for the H1N1 virus, which is expected to arrive with a vengeance this winter after its worldwide debut a few months ago, is still in production and won't be available for several weeks. It will go first to those most likely to be infected this spring — the 20-somethings and younger, and those of any age already weak from chronic health problems.

In the meantime, the rule of thumb with seasonal flu is the earlier the better, Stevenson said, adding that there really is no excuse for not getting a flu shot.

It's the behavior of people in the winter, not what the virus is doing, that cause outbreaks, she said. People tend to bunch up and stay indoors — creating the perfect transmission environment for flu viruses, which ride the moisture droplets in one person's cough or sneeze into the eyes, nose or mouth of another. The No. 1 mode of infection? From the hands to the face.

"And you don't have to be sick to be contagious," Stevenson said, noting that people are most contagious a day before they start feeling symptoms.

Stevenson, who said she is not above nagging people to get a flu shot, advised those who might think they're too healthy to need one to keep in mind there are people in their lives who are susceptible to the virus.

They are probably going to be in contact with infants in the household, grandchildren too young to be immunized or an older, ailing relative whose immune system won't be able to withstand an infection, she said.

"The thing to remember is vaccines don't kill people, but the diseases they prevent do," she said. "As a nurse, I continually run into people dealing with a death of a loved one or with a serious illness themselves that could have been prevented by just getting a flu shot."

For more information about flu vaccinations, visit www.slvhealth.org.

e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com