Published: November 03, 2009 10:43 pm      

Flu vaccines in short supply

Health department, clinics await H1N1, seasonal injections

Getting a flu shot is difficult this year, and getting tougher.

Corsicana doctor’s offices are reporting a shortage of seasonal flu shots, and H1N1, the so-called Swine Flu, is an even tougher ticket.

The Navarro County Health Department has ordered 6,000 doses and gotten 500, said Emily Carroll, administrative nurse.

“We targeted the priority groups the state asked us to target first, which is pregnant women and health care workers, and our high-risk children,” she explained. “And a few of the parents or caregivers of infants under six months of age, because infants can’t be vaccinated until they’re six months old.”

The health department, like doctor’s offices around the country, has gotten hundreds of phone calls requesting the shots, Carroll said.

“These are people anxious to get it,” Carroll said. “We’ve tried to explain we’re going by priority groups, and when we get those 6,000 doses we hope to give it to those people who would like to get it.”

Local doctor’s offices have also made requests on behalf of their own patients, but private practices haven’t been getting H1N1 doses either.

Ronnie Ragsdale administrator for the Medical and Surgical Associates of Corsicana, said his clinic has ordered 1,200 doses of H1N1 vaccine for its patients, but seen fewer than 50 doses of the nasal vaccine so far.

“It’s a long process,” Ragsdale said. “We’ve been notified we’re going to get 50 injections, but it just drags on and on forever.”

Influenza will have surges, and then calm down, then surges again, explained Dr. Kent Rogers. One group that hasn’t been hit are his older patients, he said.

“I haven’t had a single person say, born before 1957, who has come in here with it. The ones I’ve seen have been teenagers and college students.”

“It’s good to be old,” he said.

It’s a national shortage, said Carrie Williams with the Texas Department of State Health Services in Austin.

“It’s based on national supply and manufacturing capacity,” she said. “We’re receiving far fewer doses than we’d like to have to meet demand. We’d like to vaccinate anyone who can and wants to be vaccinated.”

The state expected to get 13 million doses of H1N1, but the Centers for Disease Control estimate the bulk of those won’t arrive until January.

“But the sooner the better,” Williams said.

The H1N1 vaccine demand is also affecting the seasonal flu vaccine supply, because manufacturers have switched to the H1N1. That’s left a shortage of seasonal flu shots.

The Navarro Health Department went through all its more than 2,000 doses within about 12 days, and now can’t order more, Carroll said.

The seasonal flu season won’t really start until about Thanksgiving, Rogers said. Still, the shortage of those shots won’t be resolved until the end of this year or early next year.

“I think that’s an issue nationwide,” Rogers said. “Part of it is people are more fired up to get flu shots this year, and they burned through the supply more rapidly than in years past.”

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