By RICK CALLAHAN - Associated Press Writer - Associated Press
Thursday, October 22, 2009
With swine flu cases surging across Indiana, state health officials said Thursday that nationwide delays in vaccine production have left the state with less than a third of the swine flu vaccine they had expected to get by now.
That has prompted some local health departments to postpone vaccine clinics, even as other clinics see long lines from people eager to get immunized, officials said.
State health commissioner Dr. Judy Monroe said that to date, Indiana has received about 278,000 doses of vaccine — about 30 percent of the 929,000 doses it had expected to get by late October.
She said vaccine makers have been unable to produce the vaccines as fast as they had expected. That's thrown a wrench into mass immunization plans by local health departments and health providers expecting shipments of the nasal mist and injectable vaccines.
Monroe said the slow production has "created a major challenge for us" and has been frustrating both to health providers and the public.
"The supply's just not there at the time we expected it," she said during a teleconference. "And at the same time, we're seeing widespread disease and the virus has spread at a time, October, that isn't the peak flu season typically."
The federal government originally promised 120 million doses of swine flu vaccine by now. Only 13 million have come through.
Hundreds of people lined up Thursday at Lafayette Square Mall on Indianapolis' northwest side to get one of about 3,000 swine flu vaccine doses at a free clinic.
Marion County Health Department spokesman John Althardt said the clinic was the department's first offering of the vaccines to the general public. It resulted in 2,564 people getting vaccinated and he said it was the most anyone in the department could recall for a flu vaccine clinic.
Althardt said some people showed up at early as 3 a.m., four hours before the clinic opened.
"Demand for the vaccine far outweighs availability of the vaccine," he said. "And these people showed up early because they wanted to make sure they got the vaccine."
Long lines were also reported Thursday in the northern Indiana city of Crown Point, where children waited with their mothers outside the Lake County Health Department for free doses of the vaccines.
Despite the vaccine production delays, Monroe said Indiana has received the fourth-largest amount of vaccine in the nation, behind California, Virginia and Florida, even though it's the nation's 14th most populous state.
She said the state is ordering the maximum amount of vaccines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allows it to order. The vaccines are being distributed to the state's counties based on their population.
Although Indiana has seen seven swine flu-related deaths, Monroe said the vast majority of illnesses have been mild in nature.
Acting state epidemiologist Pam Pontones said the state's hospital emergency departments are seeing a far higher percentage of influenza-like illnesses than is seen in the state's usual influenza season, which typically peaks in January and February.
She said Indiana's swine flu cases have surged during the last three weeks and it's unclear when the outbreak will level off.
Pontones said Indiana residents from infancy to age 24 are seeing the highest levels of swine flu, with schools reporting large numbers of illnesses. She said 27 Indiana public schools reported absentee rates last week of 20 percent or higher.
Last week, 98 percent of the virus specimens analyzed by the state have been found to be the swine flu, or H1N1, virus, with the remainder seasonal flu viruses, Pontones said.