Will the H1N1 vaccine arrive in time?

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - For some parents, the H1N1 vaccine couldn't come soon enough -- despite a new study that says it might be arriving too late to make much of a difference.

"I'm still going to do it because with his health, I can't take a chance," said Tiffany White, of Grand Rapids, as she walked her 3-year-old son RJ to the doctor's office. "I can't take a chance at all."

RJ has Down syndrome and a heart problem. Even without those health worries, he's in the age range of those most at risk to get the flu. So are her other five children. They will all get shots.

That is, if the H1N1 vaccine ever gets here.

And that is what worries Kent County health officials.

"The concern at this time is, we don't have any vaccine and we don't know when we're going to get it and we don't know how much we're going to get when we do get the vaccine," Kent County Health Officer Cathy Raevsky said.

So far, just 16,000 vaccines have been sent to Kent County -- enough for only health care workers. Another shipment will arrive this week, also for health providers, Raevsky said.

Perhaps by next week, some will arrive for others at high risk: pregnant women, child-care providers and children ages 6 months to 18 years.

The H1N1 flu hasn't been especially deadly so far, but according to the Centers for Disease Control, it has the potential to become so, according to Purdue University's H1N1 Web site. It has become a pandemic because most people have no immunity to it, health officials say.

Once the vaccine arrives in Kent County, the question is: Will people line up to get it?

An Epic-MRI poll shows 70 percent of voters in Michigan won't get it, or have doubts.

"I will not get the vaccine," said Maranda Nash, of Saranac, who works at an insurance company in Grand Rapids. "The one time I got a flu shot, I got sick from it -- 10 years ago -- and I've never had the flu since then."

To complicate matters, a new Purdue study shows the vaccine might be arriving after the swine flu peaks -- meaning it will do little good. The vaccine takes two weeks to take effect.

The Purdue researchers predict a "significant wave" of H1N1 this fall, with nearly two-thirds of people being infected, though not all will show symptoms.

"This wave will peak so early that the planned vaccination campaign will likely not have a large effect on the total number of people ultimately infected by the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus," they wrote in the medical journal Eurosurveillance.

For some, that doesn't matter.

"It's what's out there now," said a Muskegon County nurse and grandmother of two, who didn't want to be named. "It's a preventative, and I certainly recommend it if you can get it, to get it because it's one defense we have against the swine flu."

In the meantime, the flu season seems to be getting busy: with schools closing, a record number of patients at the Saint Mary's Hospital emergency room last week, about 100 more patients than usual over the weekend at Mercy General in Muskegon; and

higher-than-usual numbers at Metro Health.

"This could be a wave earlier in the season, or it could be a wave that continues and perpetuates into next spring," Raevsky said. "We just don't know yet."