Officials: H1N1 has plateaued

RICHMOND — Pediatrics practices are being swamped with caring for sick children, trying to get shipments of H1N1 vaccine to give to patients, and answering parent questions about when to worry if a child has sniffles or a cough.

With H1N1 swine-flu vaccine supplies drying up last week, forcing cancellation of some school-based clinics, and a local girl dying from swine flu-related illness, the events seemed to push the panic button for many.

Meanwhile, Virginia health officials said Thursday that the percentage of visits to emergency departments and urgent-care centers for influenza-related illness has plateaued and mirrors what’s going on in the rest of the country.

State health commissioner Dr. Karen Remley said patients reporting swine flu-related symptoms make up about 14 percent of emergency-room and urgent-care medical visits. Twelve people have died statewide from influenza-related problems.

“Parents have a lot of good concerns,” said Dr. Kimberly Caldwell of CJW Pediatric Specialists in Richmond.

She has seen patient numbers jump about 30 percent recently — from about 28 patients a day to 40 patients.

At the Pediatric Center, which has three area offices, practice manager Tom Girton said they are swamped with calls and patient visits.

“Do you have a stethoscope?” Girton invited, trying to provide a sense of the demand on workers who are putting in a lot of overtime to handle demand.

Normally, the practice’s nurse triage line gets 50 to 70 calls a day, Girton said.

“Last week it was 157 one day, 147 another. ... And we have two other offices. We are not only busy during the day, the phone is ringing off the wall at night,” he said.

Caldwell said a lot of what she and other providers are doing is allaying fears.

“It’s reassuring for a parent when they have seen their (doctor) and they know ‘my child is not as bad as I think.’ They feel a lot better,” Caldwell said.

Public health officials are asking people to be patient — more vaccine is on the way.

Federal officials Thursday said 24.8 million doses of vaccine had been made available for states to order. Vaccine production problems have caused available doses to fall short of earlier estimates of 45 million to 52 million doses available by now.

As of Thursday, Virginia had ordered about 589,000 doses of H1N1 flu vaccine, Remley said in a news briefing that she used to emphasize vaccinating priority groups such as children and pregnant women.

More than half of the vaccine the state had ordered has been sent to private-sector providers, Remley said.

“The good news is, hundreds of thousands of those doses have already been given to people,” she said. “The more vaccine we give to people, the more we build our immunity in our community.”