Division of Student Affairs

Availability of H1N1 Vaccine at Case Western Reserve University

The Cleveland Department of Public Health and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health have provided Case Western Reserve University with 4,200 doses of the H1N1 Nasal Spray (i.e. FluMist) vaccine. Immunization clinics will run until all the vaccine is administered. If the vaccine supply is depleted quickly, clinics may need to be suspended until more vaccine arrives. There is currently a nationwide shortage of the inactivated H1N1 injectable flu vaccine and it is likely that it may not be available until late November or December.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention H1N1 Vaccine Priority List

1. All residential students
2. All students age *25 and younger (includes CWRU, CIA, and CIM students)
3. All students working in health care or service professions
4. All faculty and/or staff members 25 years of age or younger

*Students under 18 years of age need a signed Parental Consent Form.

*Students 18 years and over need to complete a Student Consent Form. You may print this consent form and bring it with you when you visit the clinic to get your vaccine.

Read the Vaccine Information Statement for more information on the H1N1 vaccine.

Note: As additional vaccine becomes available, the university will continue to follow CDC recommendations for administering vaccine to other individuals.

Those individuals in the priority groups listed above MUST be:

• Healthy (fever-free at time of vaccine without utilizing fever-reducing medication)
• Not have any chronic diseases such as: asthma, diabetes, lung disease, kidney or liver disease, anemia or other blood disorders, or other chronic illnesses that effect swallowing or breathing.
• Not pregnant

Fact and Myths about the H1N1 Nasal Spray Vaccine

Myth: "You can get the flu from FluMist."
Fact: You cannot get the flu from a FluMist vaccination. FluMist is a live, attenuated virus that cannot replicate at body temperature and cannot cause the flu.

Myth: "FluMist virus can be easily spread by me to others making them sick."
Fact: It is harder than it seems to transmit the vaccine virus. This concern is greatly over estimated, since several unlikely events would need to occur in order for a FluMist recipient to spread a virus that then causes a clinical infection in others:

• The person must shed the virus from their nose.
• The amount of virus shed would need to be large enough to cause spread of infection.
• If the FluMist virus is spread to another person, it must become able to reproduce in the temperature of the lower airways.
• After the first three steps occur, then the FluMist virus would have to regain its ability to cause disease.

Myth: "I should not take FluMist because I live or work in close contact with an unvaccinated person at high-risk to develop influenza."
Fact: Household contacts of high-risk individuals help to protect that person by getting vaccinated. You are not helping your high-risk loved one by foregoing vaccination. It is safe for FluMist recipients to have close household contact with high-risk individuals with the sole exception of those so severely immunosuppressed that they require a special protective environment (i.e. patients with a stem cell transplant receiving care on a positive-pressure hospital ward).

It is safe for FluMist recipients to have close household contact with high-risk individuals with chronic illnesses, including diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, and even other forms of immunosupression such as HIV-infected patients and organ transplant recipients.

Myth: "FluMist makes everyone who gets it sick in some way."
Fact: There is a higher rate of certain cold symptoms following vaccination with FluMist, such as a runny nose, but many people report no symptoms at all.

The above factual information about FluMist was provided by Melanie Swift, MD, assistant professor of Medicine and medical director of the Vanderbilt Occupational Health Clinic, and Thomas Talbot, MD, assistant professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and associate hospital epidemiologist.

H1N1 Vaccination Dates at Case