News Flash
H1N1 shot prevented 1 million cases of flu
Remember those after school special-looking packages that arrived in Toronto mailboxes last October reminding us to wash our hands and get our shots? Well, according to a new Ontario study, it seems they were all worthwhile.
The study, done by Beate Sanders, a health economist with the Ontario Agency of Health Protection and Promotion, concluded 1 million swine flu cases were averted and 50 deaths were prevented because of Ontario's H1N1 vaccination program.
The study looked at the cost-effectiveness of the H1N1 vaccination program, determining it to be worthwhile. Researchers estimated that the vaccine prevented 420 hospitalizations, 28,000 visits to hospital emergency departments and 100,000 visits to doctor's offices in Ontario.
According to Sanders, the program would not have been nearly as effective if the vaccine had come any later than it did.
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This latter one is probably the biggest contributor to the significantly reduced infection. In fact, (and you can look up the facts at Health Canada and W.H.O.) the COMBINED infection rate between seasonal flue and H1N1 were about 10% of a normal flu season, while Toronto had RECORD LOW vaccination rates. It is unlikely that vaccines really accounted for very much that was useful among the general population this time around. (Not to say that vaccines aren't really, really useful when it comes to things like measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, tetanus, polio, smallpox, HPV, etc. Flu virus has become too tricky to get right year over year.)
While there is some (dubious) merit in those who justified spending the billions to point to vaccinations and devise a method that proves they were right, there is even more merit in the public health folks getting out the old-fashioned public health message: wash your hands, cover your coughs and sneezes, and STAY HOME if you're sick (and bosses, don't force people to get doctor's notes because that spreads infection going to and from the doc and sitting in highly contagious waiting rooms, and hinders recovery anyway). Boring, I know. Non-tech, I know. But, by far and away, the most effective methods we have of keeping most people generally healthy with respect to respiratory tract infections.
(And yes, I know whereof I speak, for I, too, am a PhD, and know how methodologies are mangled to prove what you want to prove. I also was invited to speak by Public Health officials where we looked hard at what actually happened during the last flu season.)