点击显示 收起
Nov. 13, 2006 - Long delays in distributing flu vaccine are frustrating public health departments and doctors' offices despite expectations of ample supplies this fall.
Public health clinics in some regions report they are missing nearly half the vaccines they ordered from manufacturers.
Delays are causing some people to go without vaccination and have officials worried those people may not return for vaccination when supplies improve.
"I'm told we're up to about 40% to 45% of what we've ordered we've received," says Don Williamson, MD, state health officer for Alabama.
Williamson says there are "isolated pockets of shortage" in state and local health departments in other parts of the country.
Pubic health officials touted a record 110 to 115 million flu vaccine doses scheduled for production this year.
That production was expected to bring relief from the shortages of the past two years, caused by safety problems at vaccine plants overseas as well as distribution delays.
CDC Director Julie Gerberding, MD, cites distribution delays as the reason some clinics and small doctor offices have not received their promised vaccine supplies, even while large chain retailers enjoy full supplies.
"There is a shortage right now, but it's probably better to characterize it as a delay," Gerberding told reporters Monday. "There are people and places who don't have what they need, there's no doubt about it."
L.J. Tan, MD, who represents the American Medical Association on the National Influenza Vaccine Summit, says up to 40% of primary care doctors in small or solo practices have not received their full vaccine orders.