Fighting flu: Sonoma County hospitals ban visitors under age 14

<p>Children under 14 no longer will be able to visit family and friends at Sonoma County’s hospitals, a move recommended by county public health officials and aimed at fighting the spread of swine flu.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>Other restrictions include granting patients only two visitors at time, as well as prohibiting visitors with flu-like symptoms such as a high fever.</p><p>Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Rosa and Healdsburg District Hospital have implemented the restrictions. Sutter Medical Center, Memorial Hospital and Petaluma Valley Hospital, among others, also are working toward the policy change.</p><p>“Effective immediately, we are enacting changes to our hospital visitation policy to protect the health of our patients, staff, other visitors, and the community at large,” said Dr. Stephen Parodi, chief of infectious disease for Kaiser Permanente Northern California.</p><p>Health officials said children are a particular concern because of hygiene issues and habits that help spread the H1N1 virus.</p><p>“We don’t want people who are at risk of getting sick visiting people with the flu at the hospital,” said Dr. Mark Netherda, the county’s deputy public health officer.</p><p>Netherda said he recommended that hospitals make exceptions in “extreme cases,” such as children or family members seeking to visit a loved one who is dying. The restrictions comply with a recent recommendation by the Sonoma County Infectious Disease Task Force.</p><p>The restrictions come amid growing concern on the part of public health officials over the ongoing shortage of H1N1 vaccine. State health officials had said they wanted to have all “high-risk” patients vaccinated by Dec. 31, a goal now in jeopardy because of the shortage.</p><p>Gil Chavez, epidemiologist for the California Department of Public Health, said Thursday more vaccine would be delivered within two weeks to those agencies with significant shortfalls. He also said that of this week more than 4,800 people have been hospitalized with H1N1 flu statewide and 266 had died, including 17 last week.</p><p>Netherda said that, unlike some county health departments that received little if any vaccine early in the distribution process, Sonoma County received a fair amount. He said that’s likely the reason the county has not received a shipment this week.</p><p>Ken August, a spokesman for the state public health department, said Thursday that 3 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the state, an amount that does not meet demand.</p><p>Nationwide, 32.3 million doses of H1N1 vaccine have been made available, but there are more than 159 million people in the priority groups who should get it, according to federal estimates.</p><p>“The federal government has set a goal of 10 million additional doses each week,” August said. “We have all been frustrated by the fact that production of vaccine has not met our expectations.”</p><p>Vaccinations for the so-called swine flu are supposed to be directed to five priority groups: pregnant women, people ages 2 to 24, health care workers, caregivers of babies younger than 6 months old, and people ages 25 to 64 with chronic health conditions that put them at increased risk of complications from the flu.</p><p>Netherda, who participated in a statewide conference call Thursday afternoon with other public health officials, said the state reported the highest rate of hospitalizations due to H1N1 flu last week. There were 773 hospitalizations of either highly suspect, probable or confirmed cases of H1N1 in the state, he said. Sonoma County has identified 109 hospitalizations.</p><p>“It’s certainly not cooling off, its continuing to increase,” Netherda said, adding that of all type-A influenza reported in the state last week, 100 percent tested as H1N1.</p><p>“People who have only received the seasonal flu vaccine still need to be thinking about and working toward getting the H1N1 vaccine,” he said.</p><p>Netherda said “a lot of people” are refusing the nasal formulation of the vaccine, which contains live — though weakened — H1N1 virus, because of the belief that it’s unsafe.</p><p>Such a trend, if it persists, could be harmful to those who can only receive the injectable form, particularly at a time when the vaccine in is short supply, he said.</p><p>“By not accepting the live form and demanding the other form you may prevent somebody else from getting that formulation which is their only option,” he said. “With a shortage like this, it just amazes me.”</p><p>The county public health department has about 2,000 doses of vaccine left, not enough for the two H1N1 flu clinics planned for Nov. 14.</p><p>“If we haven’t gotten vaccine or heard anything by Tuesday we’ll be looking very closely at the viability of continuing the clinics on the 14th,” he said. “But we’re going to give it a shot. My goal right now is get the vaccine out of the refrigerator and into the people.”</p>