The death of a Delta County resident has been attributed to H1N1 flu virus, county public health officer Bonnie reported Monday.

“Delta County did have a fatality.

It was a Delta County resident who did not go through DCMH. They were admitted directly to a Denver hospital while in Denver,” Koehler told the county commissioners.

“Delta County Memorial Hospital had 10 (influenza) admissions during the month of October. Of those admissions three are on ventilators, which isn’t good.”

Koehler continued, “We don’t test for H1N1 until they’re admitted to a hospital. Each hospital is limited to only ten tests per month by the state Health Department. Over 99 percent of the cases they’re seeing (nationwide) are Influenza-A H1N1.”

The cases of H1N1 Delta County has seen have ranged in age from 11 months to an 81 years. “The cases that we are airlifting to Denver are young — a 12-year-old, an 11-month-old, a one-year-old,” Koehler said.

Influenza hospitalizations here have included a six-year-old; a one-year-old; two, 58-year-olds; two, 63-year-olds; a 67-year-old; a 12-year-old; a 72-year-old; and, an 11-month-old.”

She said “a lot of the older patients” had underlying conditions that complicated and worsened their cases

Koehler reported on H1N1 vaccine availability and the school vaccination clinics held in the recently. She said that county health department staff have been putting in 60-hour weeks working on H1N1.

“To date, Delta County has received 2,200 doses of H1N1 vaccine. We have pushed the bulk of it to primary care providers because we want people to get vaccinated at their medical home,” she said. “Last Friday, we received 900 doses of vaccine at 11 a.m. and it was delivered out to all the physicians’ offices by 1 p.m. We hand deliver (the vaccine to physicians) with the paperwork, syringes, gloves, and the consent forms so it is as seamless as we can make it for them.”

The health department distributed 640 doses in school clinics last week. “We distributed 150 doses in Hotchkiss, 130 in Paonia, 200 in Delta, and 160 in Cedaredge,” Koehler said. “It was really interesting to watch, because in Hotchkiss we went through the 150 doses in an hour and 15 minutes. In Paonia it took until 5:30 because we could not give it away. In Delta we did 200 doses in an hour and 15 minutes. In Cedaredge it was an hour and 20 minutes and we ran out.

“The 640 doses were flu mist, and we have held another 30 doses of the preservative-free vaccine for the pregnant women we see through our ‘mono-lingual’ prenatal clinic. All the rest of the vaccine has been sent to the physicians.”

Commissioner Bruce Hovde asked, “Are you getting people balking at the schools?”

Koehler replied, “It was my job to work in the room counseling with people, and the only time I really should have been present was at Paonia. There was one kind of irate mom. But the people who were there really wanted it and wanted it now. We are seeing some pretty incredible poverty in people who really couldn’t get vaccine anywhere else. They were very grateful for this. We’re finding an incredible number of people that don’t have a medical home. So I am looking at 7,500 doses that we will be earmarking for the health department because people don’t have a medical home.”

The health department is planning H1N1 vaccination clinics for the general population in December.

“Instead of going back into the schools,” Koehler said, “what we will probably do is a clinic in the North Fork in December, possibly in Heritage Hall on a Saturday and just vaccinate first-timers, while also targeting middle and high schoolers. We looking at doing the same thing in Delta at a central location. We aren’t’ looking as if we’ll do the general population much before mid to late December. It will take that long to build supplies to do a public clinic.”

On containing the spread of the flu, Koehler told the commissioners, “We really seem to have bought some time with the fall school break. It really seems to have interrupted the transmission cycle. Flu goes in waves, and we’re on the downhill side of the first wave right now. But we expect it to come back probably in 45 to 60 days. They are starting now to ship seasonal flu vaccine,” Koehler said.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed