Task Force Emphasizes Need For Flu Shots

MOUNTAIN HOME, Tenn. – For 9-year-old Katy Grunstra, getting a flu shot Wednesday was only a minor irritant that could save a trip to the doctor.
“It doesn’t hurt at all,” the Bristol, Va., resident said after getting the vaccination.

Her mother, Ruth Grunstra, listened as the Mountain Empire Epidemiology Task Force announced its new campaign to reduce and prevent flu cases across the Tri-Cities region this season.

Members of the task force, made up of health districts, departments and systems in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, emphasized during a news conference at the James H. Quillen VA Medical Center that an annual flu shot is the single best way to prevent the illness.

“If it’s something I can do as a mother to help protect my kids and keep them from getting sick, I’m crazy not to do it,” Grunstra said.

For the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising that every child between the ages of six months and 18 years get the vaccine, unless they have a serious egg allergy.

However, it is not just children who should be immunized. “Virtually everybody should get a shot except in people who have an allergy to the flu vaccine or an allergy to one of its components,” said Cumberland Plateau Heath District Director John Dreyzehner. Influenza is highly contagious and most healthy adults could potentially infect others up to five days after becoming sick. Children could pass the virus for longer than seven days. Symptoms of the flu include fever, headache, dry cough, sore throat, muscle aches, vomiting, diarrhea and nausea.

Influenza A and B are the two major types and can cause mild to severe illness – at times even death. In the U.S., more than 200,000 are hospitalized from complications with flu each year, and 36,000 people die.

Health officials said they are confident there is an ample supply of the vaccine for this season.

“Last year, we had unused vaccine. Over 100 million doses were manufactured and we still had many million unused and we are making even more this year,” Dreyzehener said.

The vaccine costs about $25 and is now offered by more locations.

“It’s never been easier to get a flu shot. You can get it at your doctor’s office, pharmacy, the health department, hospitals. You can even get it in schools now,”
Dreyzehener said.

Because many people are squeamish about needles, a number of places now offer a nasal vaccine, FluMist, which can be used in healthy people ages 2 to 49.
“Just a little squirt in the nose and it’s all over,” he said.

To those weary of getting vaccinated, Dreyzhener advises they do it anyway to prevent the illness.

“If you don’t get vaccinated you’re gonna get sick and you’re gonna miss some of life. It’s much better to prevent it than to hope that you don’t get it and then try and deal with it after you’ve gotten it,” said Dreyzehener.

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