100 Million Vaccines on Hand for the Flu Season
WASHINGTON, Sep. 28 – One hundred million influenza vaccine doses will be available nationwide for this year immunization campaign, a record number prompted by the shortfalls that led last season to long lines of people waiting for their shots.
From last fall to this spring, influenza killed more than 36,000 people and caused 200,000 hospitalizations, according to the latest National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures.
In Connecticut, where the flu symptoms hospitalized countless people, elderly residents are already worried about the vaccine’s availability.
“We started to get calls daily in early September,” Nancy Turner of the New London
Department of Health and Social Services, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “It is mainly seniors worried about a shortage in the supply.”
The preoccupation is shared by other states. The memories of the long lines and the tales of family members debating who should get the last vaccine have been refreshed as the flu season arrives.
Testifying before a congressional committee Tuesday, Stephen Ostroff, the deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, linked the shortfall to an unusual early onset of the virus and to the fact that vaccine manufacturers had cut down their supply after two earlier mild flu seasons.
The CDC believes 185 million doses – 85 million more than will be available — would be necessary to provide immunity to all the people whose health status makes them more susceptible to serious complications by the flu Ostroff said, but added that the hundred million shots would meet the demand.
But, in case of shortage, the CDC has purchased 4.5 million shots, Ostroff told the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
Ostroff recommended that people 65 and older or with chronic illnesses, should get the vaccine. Medicare covers 100 percent of the cost for people on its rolls.
“Only about 64 percent of those over age 65 were immunized for influenza in 2002,” he said. Of the 36,000 Americans who died from the flu last season, 32,000 were 65 or older.
This year, the CDC has broadened the vaccine recommendations to children 6 to 23 months old, their families and their caregivers because babies are at increased risk for influenza-related hospitalization.
From October 2003 until January of this year, 93 children died from chronic diseases that started as flu. One such incident involved a Connecticut 11-year old who had not been vaccinated and died last December, according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
Influenza is an infection of the respiratory tract that is highly contagious, spreading from person to person through coughing and sneezing. The main symptoms are fever, headache, dry cough, sore throat, runny nose and muscle aches.
This season, more than 95 percent of the flu vaccines will be offered by the private sector. In Connecticut, the Department of Public Health will provide it only to children eligible for Medicaid’s Vaccine for Children Program.
Health officials say the best months to get the immunization shot are October and November, though it is never too late. “Now it is the time,” Ostroff said. “Let’s roll up our sleeves and get vaccinated.”
