Swine Flu Kills 2nd Person in Santa Barbara County

The swine flu-releated death of a 4-year-old boy in Santa Barbara over the weekend has some worried as large shipments of vaccine has yet to arrive to the coastal county. This comes as the CDC today announced statistics about the age populations most affected by H1N1. 53 percent of the hospitalizations are people 25 years and younger while 39 percent are people aged 25 to 64 and 7 percent are 65 plus. Today's catch phrase is that this is a "young persons disease."

In Santa Barbara County, over half of the 26 residents hospitalized with complications of H1N1 since late June were younger than 19 years old, the department Twittered last week. "The vaccine situation is very unsettled at the moment," explained Peter Hasler, Interim Health Officer for Santa Barbara county, to KSBY Action 6 News.

The Health Officer to the north in San Luis Obispo County agrees, saying the H1N1 vaccine is arriving much slower than expected. "The manufacturers gave a very optimistic roll out of millions of doses by this time," said Dr. Penny Borenstein. "It's much more modest." Limited amounts of the vaccine's nasal spray is available in both counties with bigger shipments expected to arrive by November.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles County where 35 people have died of the disease, a 92,000 doses of the vaccine arrived earlier this month with free-clinics opening on Friday.

In total, 219 people have died out of the 3051 Hospitalizations and ICU cases statewide, according to the state's Department of Public Health in their October 10th update.

Back in Santa Barbara County, both deaths happened to patients with underlying conditions. In Early October, the county's first death was an adolescent girl.