The CDC has been giving frequent H1N1 media briefings, which include updates and Q&As with reporters. The transcripts and audio recordings are a good source of news, info, and leads.
The October 13th briefing, for example, contained this helpful clarification about the danger of H1N1 to pregnant women:
Operator: Our next question is from “USA today.”
Elizabeth Weise: Thanks for taking my call. A question about the pregnancy as an underlying condition. Do you have any sense for what the mechanism is for why pregnant women are at greater risk?
Anne Schuchat: There are probably two factors that influence the risk that pregnant women have for influenza complication. And this applies to both seasonal flu and the H1N1 flu. In pregnancy, there’s a change in the immune system which makes it easier for the woman to hold the fetus and not have immune reaction to the baby. And so risk of infections can be greater. The second issue is probably more mechanical, that as the woman gets larger with the baby growing, there can be pressing on the airways and really a restrictive lung disease. So it’s harder to take a deep breath and it’s harder to fight off a lung infection especially in the later stages of pregnancy.
The most recent briefing, from October 16th, included a question from NPR’s Joanne Silberner about delays in H1N1-vaccine production.
Joanne Silberner: Hi Dr. Schuchat [...] Can you tell us the reason for the slowdown in the H1N1 vaccine manufacturing and can you give us some numbers. What were you expecting by the end of October and now what are you expecting to see?
Anne Schuchat: Yeah. You know, vaccine production for influenza is pretty complex. And the complex process this year is taking a bit longer than we would hope. The companies are making unprecedented amounts of vaccine and the yield of the antigen has been lower than had been hoped for. They need to do potency testing and purity testing and that takes time and of course there’s lot release testing that the manufacturers do and that the FDA does. We are not cutting any corners in the safety of the production of this vaccine or the testing and oversight of the vaccine and it’s very important to us that this process be done carefully and safely. And so those are the major factors. We had hoped and i think our last estimate about expected vaccine that we made several weeks ago was that by the end of the month we might be around 40 million doses. What i can say is that it’s really hard to predict exactly how many we’ll have by that point. So i need to caveat the estimate of the decrease in availability. We think at most it might be about a 10 — about a 10 to 12 million doses less than that by the end of the month.
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