The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recent decisions to end its annual flu vaccine national campaign and pull some information off of its website could have implications for local health care, health agency and community clinic officials said.
A lack of federal advocacy for flu vaccines will make it harder to convince people to get vaccinated, said Dr. Syed Shoaib Shah, CEO of Salaam Cleveland, a free health clinic.
“We were already struggling with low rates of vaccination in certain areas. It's going to create another barrier that we have as health care providers to reach the community,” he said. "We were facing the onslaught of the misinformation campaigns that were coming out since COVID time. They still go on, and more vaccine hesitancy."
This development occurs as the U.S. may be experiencing the worst flu season it's seen since 2019, according to the CDC. Nationally, the flu mortality rate has surpassed the COVID-19 rate for the first time since the pandemic. There have also been 568 hospitalization for Influenza A in Northeast Ohio, including seven flu-related deaths in Cuyahoga County as of Feb. 8.
The CDC also recently pulled geographic data from its website that officials like Kristina Bell, Coshocton Health Commissioner, said hinders her agency’s work. This information might include which residents live far away from medical facilities and where lower income populations live.
“It hurts us for pre-planning and forecasting what's going to be needed, whether that's related to vaccines or other chronic illnesses,” she said.
Such information might help the agency determine which residents might need transportation to obtain needed vaccinations, Bell said, adding that she has no indication when or if this information will become available again. In the meantime, the agency is turning to census reports for this data, which is a more time-consuming process, she said.
