Flu season will be commissioning the largest vaccination campaign in the US

Photographer: Robert Giroux / Getty Images

This fall, the United States needs to vaccinate a large number of Americans in the midst of a public health crisis. It is also a valuable dry run if the coronavirus shot arrives months later.

The annual US influenza vaccine campaign has been confused by Covid-19, away from people’s pharmacies, schools, offices, hospitals and other places where people are commonly vaccinated. But, Influenza surge hits coronavirus pandemic, Health authorities are looking at how one vaccine initiative might impact another.

In Denver, public health officials are trying to increase the number of adults who get the influenza vaccine from 45% this year to 65%. To do that, they set up a “strike team” that allows them to go from school to school, give them vaccines, vans that can stop at construction sites to inoculate workers, and to hard-to-reach communities. Outreach.

“This whole model we are building can then be transferred to Covid,” said Judith Schley, Denver Public Health Doctor and Vice President.

In Baltimore, there are several vans sent to carry out the Covid-19 test for high-risk residents. The city’s health commissioner Letitia Dzirasa said in an interview that they would use the vaccine for influenza vaccines and then Covid-19.

“Our flu vaccine distribution informs the Covid vaccine distribution,” Dzirasa said.

The federal government is leading the development of vaccines, issuing more than $4 billion to pharmaceutical companies. The funding aims to accelerate production and reduce the financial risk to the dozens of the most promising inoculations in development. President Donald Trump said he may be ready to fire by November, but other experts within his government said that by 2021 before most Americans would have access to it. I expect it to work.

So far, the federal health authorities have provided few details about vaccination regimens. The U.S. says it will likely rely on the private sector to distribute shots, extending last week its contract with healthcare supplier McKesson Corp, potentially worth more than $300 million. It was But the government says very little about who will be attacked first, where they will be given, and how to ensure that they reach inaccessible and vulnerable communities.

at least 170,000 Although killed by a virus in the United States, many have spread to other parts of the country outside the northeast. New cases have fallen from a maximum of around 80,000 every day last month, but new returns have been reported at schools and colleges when students return, forcing them to close days or weeks after opening. I will.

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call Guidance for discussing influenza vaccination with healthcare providers and for vaccination during pandemics and surgeryLarge-scale vaccination clinics held on satellite, temporary or off-site locations. “

Meanwhile, local governments are still waiting for clarification. “I haven’t heard anything yet,” said Girasa of Baltimore.

The United States is in discussions with experts and medical ethicists on Covid-19 vaccine allocation plans. With the help of the Pentagon, the government plans to work with the existing health care distribution network to open fire to the general public, Trump said.

Never been done

As such, there is no single US influenza vaccination campaign. Health authorities in the United States and around the world select and target strains of influenza, pharmaceutical companies manufacture shots, which are provided by workplaces, schools, drug stores, local public health departments, doctors and hospitals.

The federal government typically plays a role in financing and promoting vaccines, but not in physically distributing vaccines. This year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bought 9 million times the adult flu vaccine, compared to 500,000 during the normal year.

Howard Markel, a physician and historian at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and historian, said the scale of the vaccination campaign needed for Covid-19 would be difficult for logistics. Previous efforts to prevent pandemic threats are inadequate.

“We have not vaccinated all Americans,” he said in an interview.

In 1976, after the swine flu outbreak in Fort Dix, NJ, the Gerald Ford administration planned a mass vaccination program to prevent a pandemic. “They were held in big gyms and public meetinghouses,” said Markel, who remembered getting a shot when he was 16.

The vaccination drive was dismantled after several cases of Gillen-Barre syndrome were confirmed in the person who received the injection. America Campaign review In 2003, the exact biological link between the vaccine and the condition was not established, but an increase in disease that could cause muscle weakness and temporary paralysis was identified.

In 2009, the H1N1 influenza pandemic prompted another effort to produce vaccines quickly. After all, only about 20% of the population was attacked, Markel said.

“It’s a huge job and there’s no question about it,” Markel said.

Public health authorities also need to overcome reluctance by some Americans to fire. August 7 Gallup vote found One-third will not get the Covid-19 vaccine even if they are ready or even free. In addition, some Americans have rejected basic public health measures such as wearing masks and social distances, further questioning their willingness to participate in a vaccine campaign.

Some vaccine infrastructure already exists. The surge in demand for Covid-19 testing has led drugstore chains, states, and cities to set up sites where people can line up and drive cars. The H1N1 flu pandemic also provided a road map for mass vaccination, said CVS Health Corp. CEO Larry Merlo.

“It was really a spark plug,” Merlo said in an interview this month. The company is planning a final session with coronavirus vaccine officials, Merlo said.

A spokesperson for Walgreens, the second-largest US pharmacy chain after CVS, says both existing testing and vaccination infrastructure support future delivery of Covid vaccines.

Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical company working with GlaxoSmithKline Plc on coronavirus vaccines, said it is in contact with CVS and other drug stores on vaccination plans.

“We expect some of the blueprints we developed for influenza vaccination to be blueprints for Covid-19 vaccination,” said Elaine O’Hara, sanofi’s North American vaccine director. I will.

Denver plan

In Denver’s public health department, Shlay said he started thinking about how to deliver the Covid-19 vaccine in June.

She knows that childhood vaccination has dropped significantly since March when Covid closed things down, and she believes her agency could build a model to vaccinate people in need of the Covid-19 vaccine. It was.