Preparing for this year’s flu season, Lane County Public Health Services ordered 4,000 influenza vaccinations, a shipment that should have been received in August. Instead, only 800 vaccinations have come in, and flu season is rapidly approaching.
Audrey Ashby, spokeswoman for leading vaccine manufacturer Wyeth-Ayerst, said that the nation’s health services will receive full shipments of vaccinations by late December, but some health officials worry this may be too late.
The shipments were seriously delayed by the vaccine manufacturers’ struggles to develop the A/Panama flu strain, which will be used to create a vaccine, she said.
Each year, vaccine-manufacturing companies are given three strains of the flu virus from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and asked to use them to develop a flu vaccine. The three strains used to create a vaccine change every year, with this year’s strains being the A/Panama, B/Yamanashi and A/New Caledonia.
Ashby said the company’s developers have no idea why the A/Panama strain has been so difficult to develop.
Pat Dotson of Lane County Public Health Services said the delay has caused the re-scheduling or cancellation of many flu shot clinics.
“We will get the vaccines out as often as possible,” Dotson said. “If the clinics get too delayed, however, we have to cancel them and go with the others we have scheduled.”
County health services put on three clinics so far this year, and at each, some people were turned away.”We are only giving shots to people who are considered ‘high risk’, which are those who have a greater need for the vaccination,” Dotson said.
Those who fall under the category of “high risk” include: people 65 years old and older; residents of nursing homes and chronic-care facilities; adults and children who have a type of lung disease or other chronic illness; children who are taking long-term aspirin therapy; women in their second or third trimester of pregnancy; household members of people in high-risk groups; and health care workers, as determined by the CDC.
“There have been a lot of people filtering themselves out of the clinics if they realize they don’t fit into the ‘high risk’ category,” said Sandy Mower, the clinic services supervisor for Lane County Public Health Services. “But we have still had to turn away some of those who are ‘high risk’ because there just weren’t enough vaccinations.”
Mowrer said the shortage will basically result in a lot of people not getting immunized before the flu season starts. She said the season typically starts after the first of the year.
Ashby said 54 percent of the orders should be in by the end of November, and the full shipment should be in by the end of December. For some Lane County residents, this may be too late.
“A flu vaccination takes up to two weeks to begin working and only lasts about a year, so if you’ve been vaccinated before it won’t do any good,” Mowrer said.
Dotson said all Lane County residents can do is be patient and wait for the full shipment to come in. Until then, he asks that only those who fall in the “high risk” category come for vaccinations.
“Even doctor’s offices and other health care providers cannot get the vaccine, so we will continue screening those who come to the clinics in order to determine who needs the vaccination the most,” Dotson said.