State health officials aren’t expecting adequate supplies of H1N1 vaccine until late November into December. By then many North Carolina residents will have already been exposed to the virus.

However, State Health Director Dr. Jeffrey Ingles said Monday unless a person has had a laboratory-confirmed case of H1N1 virus, they should go ahead and get vaccinated.

He also said those who wish to receive vaccine without a preservative derived from mercury, which has been speculated to be linked to autism, must make their wishes known to their health care providers.

“The attack rate is now estimated to be about 10 percent of the population, which means 90 percent are not getting sick,” Ingles said. “Even if you did have a flu-like illness earlier in the season, there is no guarantee that it was H1N1 that you were infected with, so the recommendation is that unless you had a laboratory confirmed case of H1N1, you should go ahead and get the vaccine.”

There is currently no tally being taken of the number of cases of H1N1 in the state, and the state is excepting about seven million to eight million doses at an unknown cost to the federal government.

On October 6, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services sent out a press release stating the state was changing the way it reported flu deaths and hospitalizations, dropping laboratory examinations to confirm H1N1 infection.

“The state will no longer be reporting separately the number of hospitalizations and deaths among patients with lab-confirmed pandemic H1N1,” the release read. “However, the 2009 H1N1 strain of flu accounts for more than 99 percent of all flu currently circulating in the state and the country.”

A spokesperson from the DHHS confirmed most, if not all, of the cases of flu illness currently can be attributed to H1N1.

“It is believed that all of the flu out there is H1N1,” DHHS Spokesperson Renee McCoy said Friday afternoon, estimating 99 percent of current cases are H1N1.

“The studies have not been done yet, but we assume that H1N1 behaves similar to other strains of the influenza virus,” Ingles said. “If you had a confirmed infection with H1N1, then you have immunity, and that immunity can last for some time. However, the thing about influenza is that it mutates and changes, which is why people should get the flu shot every year.”

Local health officials have said the number of cases of flu-like symptoms has been on the rise in Richmond County.

McCoy said there is “a huge shortage of supply” at this point.

“Until November and December, when we begin to receive full distribution, we are recommending only people in the high-risk groups receive the vaccine,” she said.

The groups that receive priority in the distribution of the vaccine include pregnant women, household contacts and caregivers of children under the age of six months, people between the ages of six months and 24 years old, health care emergency medical services personnel and persons aged 25 who have health conditions associated with higher risk of medical complications from influenza.

The virus is commonly believed to more profoundly infect people under the age of 24, and the bulk of local hospitalizations from the flu strain have come from people in that age category, according to County Health Director Dr. Tommy Jarrell.

Ingles also addressed concerns over vaccine containing preservatives derived from mercury.

He said it is the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that pregnant women should receive preservative-free vaccine.

“The recommendation really has to do with concerns about mercury in the vaccine, and particularly pregnant women who don’t want their fetuses to be exposed to mercury,” he said.

Ingles said there is no evidence that mercury causes harm to human beings or fetuses, but if anyone desires for their child to have the preservative-free vaccination, they should make that known to those administering the shot.

“(The preservative-free vaccine) is the vaccine that tends to come out later in the season, because it is distributed in single doses,” he said. “The vaccine with preservatives is found in multi-use vials, which makes sense because the multi-use can sit on a shelf for some time.”

Ingles advised those who are not in the priority groups and think they might have already taken ill with H1N1 not to chance it and get vaccinated anyway.

“If your illness wasn’t a confirmed case of H1N1, I’d recommend you go out and spend the $30 once the supply becomes available,” he said. “Even if you did have H1N1, getting the vaccine isn’t going to hurt you.”

n Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.