The Mahoning County Board of Health has been getting questions, a lot of them in fact, concerning the H1N1 flu virus.
It seems that many people are confused that there are two different influenza vaccines available this year. One being the traditional flu shot that millions of Americans receive each year which is available now. The other being the H1N1 vaccine, which will be arriving in late October and early November.
The regular flu shot is available to pretty much anyone that wants one, but the H1N1 is going to targeted to groups like pregnant women, people under the age of 24, and health care workers.
Dr. John Venglarcik, an infectious disease specialist with the Mahoning County Board of Health, says the vaccines are the simplest ways to protect yourself from a nasty flu season, "More and more people say what can I do? They're frustrated with a lot of things happening in government. This is what you can do, you can get immunized. I mean we can prevent a big deal from happening very simply by immunizing individuals and we need people to believe us, that we really want to get them immunized."
Venglarcik adds that time is of the essence because of how late the H1N1 vaccine is arriving, "Ideally we'd like to get this done between the 1st of November and Thanksgiving because everybody starts to travel. I'd like to have it done by that Friday before. Get as many people as we can immunized because that's when people travel, and you know from last time with Mexico and that, the people that traveled picked it up and brought it back, not the people that stayed in the community."
Officials from the Board of Health hosted the forum on Monday night at the Struthers Middle School. They spent the better part of an hour trying to answer peoples questions and calm their concerns, and according to at least one of the people in attendance, it may have worked. "I think the more you're educated about anything, it's always a big help. You know, they're just strongly encouraging everyone to get the vaccination. I, in the past, have never gotten one, and am actually considering getting the flu shot this year," says Gi Gi Potts of Struthers.
