Flu Facts for You

While the normal season influenza vaccine appears to be readily available, the pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine production is still not up to targeted levels. Certainly one of the reasons for the shortage of the swine flu vaccine, is that the mutant H1N1 swine flu did not appear on the scene until April of 2009, and by that time, vaccine manufacturers were already into their seasonal vaccine production schedules. Thus the swine flu vaccine got a late start. Because the limited supply of H1N1 swine flu vaccine was anticipated, priority was given to certain especially at risk targeted groups including pregnant women, persons who live with or provide care for infants less than 6 months old, health care workers, persons aged 6 months- 24 years, persons 25- 64 years who have medical conditions that would place them more at risk. This original targeted composite group included about 160 million people or about half the US population. As of November 20th, about 46 million doses of vaccine had been shipped with allocations given proportionate to population in the states. Therefore as of today, only about 1/3 of the quantity needed to vaccinate the targeted groups had been shipped. This is why in many locations, it is difficult to find the swine flu vaccine. And of course, there is also the added frustration of not being in a targeted group. The good news about the latter situation is that the more vaccinations given, whether to you or someone else, the greater the dampening effect on the pandemic. So even if you can’t get the vaccine, although you should try, you still benefit from others getting it. It appears that the number of new cases appearing in the United States is leveling off which would seem to indicate that the vaccination program is working, even if the supply of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine is shipping a little slower than would be desired.