Word: h1n1
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...better understand how this bug might move through the U.S. in coming months, officials have spent part of this summer monitoring the way H1N1 has been behaving during the southern hemisphere's winter months. It has been spreading fast, attendance has dropped at Patagonian ski resorts, and flu fears have crippled the Buenos Aires theater business. Across the region, countries are reporting that H1N1 has become the dominant strain of the flu season. But the most positive development is that the virus has so far not mutated - a fact that makes it possible for scientists to create a vaccine...
...While H1N1 proved to be a manageable bug during the spring, U.S. officials are taking no chances as autumn, the traditional flu season, approaches. One pessimistic model from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts that 40% of the nation could be struck - roughly 140 million people - with perhaps a six-figure death toll if a vaccination campaign is not successfully implemented. "To a lot of people, the flu went away," worries Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, who received her first Situation Room flu briefing minutes after taking her oath in April. "Nothing could...
...Mobilization Sebelius says the most accurate modeling for the current virus is likely to be found in the 1957 flu epidemic. Like H1N1, that flu began early in the year on foreign soil and was relatively quiet in the summer. Once school reconvened, however, it surged. As the disease peaked in October - between the launch of Sputnik and the release of the movie Jailhouse Rock - 43% of Manhattan students and 11% of New York City teachers reported absent from school in a single day. By the time it dissipated, about 1 in 4 Americans had taken ill from the disease...
...officials will probably recommend inoculating 160 million Americans who are most at risk of infection. Despite the fact that the shots will be free, the campaign will not be easy: last year only 40% of the U.S. population took the time to get a regular flu shot. And the H1N1 vaccine is going to require some commitment. Officials say health workers will need to administer at least two shots in the arm spaced four weeks apart before the end of the year. (See TIME's health and medicine covers...
...everyone will be recommended for the H1N1 vaccine. The target group includes pregnant women, caretakers of infants, adults with chronic illnesses like diabetes and asthma and every child, teen and young adult between the ages of 6 months and 24 years. H1N1 is particularly tough on these populations. Pregnant women, for example, are more than four times as likely as others to be admitted to the hospital for the flu. Because the serum, which is still being developed, won't be ready until at least mid-October, full immunity may not kick in until early December - after the second doses...