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CDC Prioritizes Flu Shots Again
Sept. 14, 2005 - Federal health officials are once again putting high-risk groups first in line for flu vaccinations this fall, including some evacuees from Hurricane Katrina.
They cited uncertainty over vaccine supplies as the reason for the recommendation.
Officials said Wednesday that they want doctors to prioritize flu shots this fall for persons over 65 years old, those with chronic disease such as lung and heart disease, and young children between 6 and 23 months of age. Hurricane Katrina evacuees older than 6 months now living in crowded conditions such as shelters, where lung diseases like influenza easily spread, also fall into this category. These groups are at highest risk of complicated illnesses if infected by the flu, which hospitalizes more than 200,000 Americans and kills 36,000 each year.
Health care workers and older children with chronic diseases including asthma are also able to get vaccinations first under the recommendations. Officials stressed that the advice was voluntary but urged doctors and patients to abide by their planning.
The recommendations are to remain in effect until Oct. 24, after which all adults will be eligible for flu vaccinations, they say.
Similar priority groups were favored last year when half of the U.S. flu shot supply was lost because officials in Britain suspended the license of a vaccine plant. Authorities say they don't expect similar shortages this year but that the priority groups are being used as a safeguard while vaccine supplies remain uncertain.
Up to 180 million Americans are included in the high-risk groups, though only a fraction are expected to demand vaccinations. Public health officials remain unsure how many doses will be available in the U.S. this year.
"We can never be 100% certain about how many doses we're going to have," Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC, told reporters.
"I think it's a prudent approach given the uncertainty of supplies," she said in a later interview.
Counting Doses
Vaccine manufacturer Sanofi-Pasteur is expected to generate some 60 million doses for the U.S. market, while GlaxoSmithKline is expected to provide 8 million doses of a newly approved vaccine.
An inhaled flu vaccine sold by MedImmune will be available to an estimated 3 million healthy child and nonelderly adult patients. This vaccine can be given at any time for vaccination of nonpregnant healthy people aged 5-49, including most health care personnel, other people in close contact with groups at high risk for influenza-related complications, and others desiring protection against influenza.
But it is Chiron Corp., the company behind last year's shortages, that remains the uncertainty for U.S. officials. FDA officials have said that they are encouraged by steps the company has taken to correct sanitation problems that led to last year's plant shutdown. Chiron Corp. projects production of 18 million to 26 million doses of the flu vaccine.
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