The Associated Press | Posted: Friday, October 15, 2004 12:00 am
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) - People eager to get one of just 100 doses of influenza vaccine offered by a local grocery store started lining up at 2 a.m., Rosauers Food and Drug Center officials said.
Aisles filled with elderly residents waiting hours from lawn chairs was repeated at other stores, including a nearby Albertsons in Clarkston, Wash., where the line for flu shots started to form six hours before the shots were offered.
"We had a fairly good system going - we had them prescreened," said Greg Blank, store manager of Rosauers Food and Drug Center. "I just wish we had more (vaccine) to give to people."
Residents are frightened by the vaccine shortage, and rightly so, said Maggi Alsager, nursing supervisor for North Central District Health.
"You've got very vulnerable people who are scared and know if they get a bad case of the flu, they will die," Alsager said. "Unlike some of the other districts, physicians in our district did not get the vaccine so that's a huge problem for us. We will have a high percentage of high risk people who will not get it.
"We are very, very concerned," Alsager said.
The United States' flu vaccine supply was abruptly cut in half last week when one of its two flu vaccine suppliers, Chiron Corp., was shut down by British health officials because of contamination.
Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued strict guidelines of who can receive the vaccine. It has also halted shipments from the remaining supplier, Aventis Pasteur, until it can figure out how supplies should be distributed.
Panhandle Health District officials originally expected to get 7,500 vials of the vaccine, but 63 percent of them were ordered from Chiron. Kootenai Medical Center, meanwhile, is giving employees working in the intensive care unit and oncology priority for its limited vaccine supply.
In Nampa, most flu clinics are completely booked with hundreds of people on waiting lists. Southwest District Health has been flooded with requests for shots.
"There were 400 calls in Nampa, and 400 in Caldwell on Tuesday," spokeswoman Laurie Boston said. "We had no idea there would be this much of a demand.
State health officials have asked that only people considered to be at high risk of influenza complications get the vaccine. High risk individuals include the very young, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.
To free up more vaccines for others, North Central Health District in Lewiston decided not to vaccinate its own health care workers, even though they are likely to be exposed to the flu while caring for patients.
Instead, district officials distributed all 1,870 doses they had received to local physicians and nursing homes, asking the recipients to give the vaccine only to those most in need.
Kevin Spainhower, the director of marketing at Mercy Medical Center in Nampa, said some of the vaccine that hospital receives will go to personnel.
"One of our priorities is to make sure folks here who are caring for others are protected. But we certainly want to respond to the community need as well," Spainhower said.
Eastern District Health, meanwhile, did not receive any of the vaccine it ordered - nor did many of the physicians in the region.
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare spokesman Tom Shanahan said Eastern District Health may not be entirely out of luck, however. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Aventis Pasteur are working to distribute some vaccine to regions most in need.
State officials are still trying to determine how many high-risk residents in Idaho will be left without access to the vaccine, Shanahan said. That number could be available as early as next week.
Nationally, he said, about 98.2 people are considered to be in high-risk groups, but out of those who are 65 years and older, only 66 percent generally seek the flu shots.
Though many adults may have to go without the vaccine, there is no shortage of the vaccine formulated for very young children, he said.