Flu widespread; state health officials preparing

As Virginia prepares to receive its first doses of swine-flu vaccine, the death of another state resident infected with the virus is a reminder that influenza can be deadly.

"It's very unfortunate and sad when anybody dies of an infectious disease," said Dr. Karen Remley, Virginia health commissioner, yesterday in an online video chat on TimesDispatch.com.

"We know people are dying from H1N1," she said. "I think we should all be worried mainly because this is an epidemic and many people are infected."

Health officials yesterday reported the death of a man in the Thomas Jefferson Health District, which includes the Charlottesville area. The man, they said, had an underlying health condition that put him at greater risk for complications.

While most people infected with the swine-flu virus are getting mild or moderate illness, people with underlying health conditions are at risk of more severe illness. Outbreaks and clusters of swine-flu cases have been reported in colleges and universities and K-12 schools in the state.

The death reported yesterday follows a swine-flu-related death reported Friday. That case involved an adult in the Martinsville area. There have been six deaths in Virginia attributed to swine flu.

Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting more than 900 deaths related to the new flu virus, which surfaced in the United States in April. In comparison, seasonal flu kills an estimated 36,000 people annually. Because the H1N1 swine-flu virus has not been detected in humans before now, it has the potential to make a lot more people sick.

Public health officials continue to emphasize prevention -- handwashing, staying home when sick and coughing, and sneezing into a tissue or sleeve.

There is also a big push for people to get vaccinated when H1N1 vaccine becomes available. Virginia should get its first doses of swine-flu vaccine soon, Remley said yesterday.

Those first doses will be the nasal spray version of the vaccine, which is made with a live, weakened flu virus and is recommended for use only by healthy people ages 2 to 49. Virginia may get 50,000 to 60,000 doses to start, Remley said.

"It should become available some time in the next three to four days for us to be able to distribute," Remley said.

"What we plan to do is to use that vaccine to help start to get out to our health-care facilities, to those vaccinators who will be vaccinating children," she said. "I call it priming the pump, just really starting that flow. We anticipate by the end of October we will have plenty of vaccine available for those who need it."

Health-care workers and emergency responders are among the groups recommended to receive the first doses of vaccine. Pregnant women and people with underlying health conditions are also priority groups, but they are advised not to get the nasal spray vaccine. Injected vaccine, which is made with a killed or inactivated virus, is expected to become available in about two weeks.

Flu activity in Virginia is widespread, and other state agencies have ramped up their response capability. While very little testing is being done to diagnose individual cases, testing is being done to monitor changes in the virus that might pose new and different threats.

"We can track it, characterize it and respond to it when a new strain emerges," said Sean Kelly, group manager of the molecular laboratory at the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services."

"One thing about the influenza virus: It mutates and changes constantly," Kelly said.

Since April, the state lab has received nearly 1,000 influenza samples from around the state.

The H1N1 virus, "is actually the only flu virus we are seeing in Virginia right now," said James L. Pearson, director of the state labs. "The last time we detected something other than H1N1 was in June."

Contact Tammie Smith at (804) 649-6572 or .

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or .