WASHINGTON — Newly released government survey data show most states did a better job vaccinating children and teens against the H1NI swine flu during the fall and early winter than adults.
"In general, coverage of children was better, and we think there were a variety of reasons for that, but we know that many of the states with the highest coverage of children achieved this through school-based clinics," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overall, phone surveys done between September and the end of January with more than 214,000 respondents show just under 38 percent of children from six months through 17 years got a swine flu shot.
Schuchat said the vaccination rate for that age group in the previous flu season was about 24 percent.
Overall, CDC estimates that between 72 million and 81 million Americans have been vaccinated against the swine flu, a vaccine that was developed and distributed in large doses in only about six months.
Officials say since the new strain of flu was first identified nearly a year ago, it's made about 60 million Americans sick, put a quarter million in the hospital and led to some 12,000 deaths.
Schuchat said federal health officials had always worked toward having more vaccine than the public might demand, and expressed hope that many of an estimated 71 million remaining doses will still be administered during the next few months.
The swine flu hits children and young adults particularly hard, while generally showing less effect on the elderly — probably due to natural immunity among people exposed to a similar strain more than 50 years ago. Even so, about 22 percent of people 65 and older reported they'd gotten the vaccine.
Although outbreaks of the flu have been waning since January, officials are concerned about a resurgence of cases in recent weeks in Georgia and several other southeastern states that had large late summer and early fall flu surges last year. Those states also had one of the lowest rates of vaccination, according to the survey.
"We don't know how the virus is going to behave, or whether this pattern is going to be seen in other states, but vaccination is still a good idea," Schuchat said.
While some vaccine will expire in June, most doses remain effective into 2011. "We're encouraging providers to hold on to it and keep offering it. We would hate to see a lot of disease surface in August and have all the vaccine have been thrown out," the CDC official said.
By October or November, a new formula of seasonal flu vaccine that includes swine flu antigens will be available, and there will be no further need for the single-strain vaccines.
Officials are continuing to evaluate how some states — particularly in New England — were able to vaccinate three times as many children as states like Georgia, Mississippi and Texas.
Many factors combine to influence how many people get vaccinated, including how many people in a community are getting sick. Disease was on the wane in many parts of the south before the flu shots became widely available.
Schuchat noted that three New England states — Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont — have statewide programs to give shots in school-based clinics. All had childhood coverage of 60 percent or better.
"There was much done in this outbreak that we can be proud of, and many opportunities to do things better," she noted.