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Why not vaccinate before school started?

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TBO.com

Published: October 27, 2009

Q. Why did they open the schools, why not wait until everyone had the shot and then open the schools, seems like a lot of people could avoid getting ill.

- Sandy, Largo

A. When it comes to issues like infectious diseases, timing is everything. And in the case of swine flu, everything went bad early on.

Swine flu was first identified as a new virus in April, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quickly tried to slow the spread of the disease, which we all now know has hit people worldwide and killed thousands.

Scientists started developing a vaccine for swine flu as soon as they knew about it. But it takes about six months for a safe, acceptable vaccine to be developed, tested and produced. That's why you're only seeing the vaccine arrive now.

And that's also why you see a separate vaccine for seasonal flu; that vaccine's production was already underway in April, when H1N1 emerged as a fast-spreading virus.

It would have been a logistical nightmare to keep tens of millions of students out of school until now. And it likely wouldn't have made a big difference anyway, considering the disease spread a lot this summer at summer camps and other places where kids are known to congregate.

Until now, advice about hand washing and coughing into your elbow were the best prevention available.

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