States prepare for flu vaccine delay

SALT LAKE CITY - Most Westerners will have to brave much of flu season without their influenza vaccinations.

Vaccine manufacturers told the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer to expect delays in vaccine shipments and possible reductions of available vaccine for the 2000-01 season.

Manufacturers had trouble growing a new strain of the flu, said CDC spokeswoman Charlis Thompson.

The CDC will not know if there will be a national shortage of the vaccine until the end of the month, Thompson said. She expects the delay to be about a month and that the shots will be shipped out in November.

Although productions problems have occurred in the past, ''I don't believe it's happened to this extent before,'' she said.

In response, health officials across the region are either giving the shots only to high risk people - such as the elderly and chronically ill - or delaying the vaccinations until later in the season.

The CDC is recommending that people older than 65, those living in nursing homes and those with chronic illnesses get the shots first.

Priority is also recommended for health care workers, pregnant women in their second and third trimesters and those who have household contact with the chronically ill.

But health officials are being urged to wait to give the general population, including young children, their shots until the shipments of the vaccine are available.

The peak of flu season usually occurs in February.

Alaska's immunology program has not received any of the 85,000 doses it ordered last spring, said Laurel Wood, program manager for the state Department of Health and Social Services. Some private practices in Alaska have begun getting a small amounts, but not in the quantities they requested.

San Francisco's Department of Health also is without its vaccines and will decide later this month if it needs to prioritize the shots.

Other areas are delaying the vaccine season, waiting until the shipments arrive before deciding whether to ration the vaccine.

In Nevada, Clark County health officials put off the vaccinations until November and will ration the vaccine by offering it to the high-risk population only. The county health district, which includes Las Vegas, expects to receive half the usual amount of doses and hopes to get them in October, a month late.

In Utah and Wyoming, officials have asked that early campaigns for the shots be suspended.

''We have discouraged all community vaccine campaigns. You used to see people getting them (vaccinations) in grocery stores. That won't be happening this year,'' said Jana Kettering, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Health.

It's not known whether the delay will cause a more severe flu season.

''There is no indication that the 2000-2001 flu season will be any more severe than it has been during the past several seasons,'' said Dr. Richard Hoffman, Colorado's chief medical officer, in a prepared statement.

Kettering advises the people to take precautions against the flu such as frequent hand washing, and, for those who do catch the flu, staying home.

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