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Flu shot shortage resolved, but there's a price to pay
Tuesday, October 02, 2001 By Anita Srikameswaran, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Scenes from the last flu season -- mass cancellations of flu clinics, long lines of people waiting outside local grocery stores in frigid temperatures for limited doses of flu shots and patients making frantic calls to doctors' offices looking for the vaccine -- are not likely to be repeated this fall.
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The problems that led to last season's shortage have been taken care of, but at a price.
People not covered by Medicare will have to pay $12 to get a flu shot at the Allegheny County Health Department and even more at community clinics held at Giant Eagle and CVS stores and some other locations.
In the past, the health department covered the costs of vaccinating high risk individuals regardless of their insurance coverage.
But because vaccine manufacturers doubled the price tag on the vaccine -- from $23 to $48 for a 10-dose vial -- the department can no longer offer it for free, said Guillermo Cole, health department spokesman.
The department ordered 70,000 doses of vaccine earlier this year. If more doses are needed, the price goes up. The county cannot return or get credit for unused vaccine.
About 5,000 doses are expected to be administered at the department's Oakland clinic. The Visiting Nurse Foundation and the American Respiratory Alliance of Western Pennsylvania reimburses the health department for the 30,000 doses they deliver in their community campaigns.
The department distributes the remaining supply for free to community agencies, which operate small clinics in senior centers and other sites.
However, those agencies will have to pay for vaccine next year, Cole said.
The price of vaccine went up partly to prevent delays in distributing the vaccine, said Len Lavenda, spokesman for Aventis Pasteur, which provides the vaccine to half the country, including the health department.
A triple dose of problems led to last year's shortage. First, manufacturers had trouble with the slow-growing strain of influenza for the vaccine. Then one manufacturer stopped production before shipping out any vaccine, leaving the remaining three companies to take up the slack, and finally another had to make changes to meet federal requirements.
"All together, there was enough vaccine produced last year, but it arrived much later than normal," Lavenda said.
Although the first flu case last November was confirmed before most supplies had reached Western Pennsylvania, the relatively mild season cushioned the impact of the delays.
In Allegheny County, there were only 104-lab confirmed cases -- a third fewer than the previous season's record-setting 154 cases. For every confirmed case, the health department estimates there are another hundred to thousand cases not diagnosed.
This year, Aventis will ship vaccine supplies in stages: customers were to receive at least 25 percent of their order in September, and the remainder will be shipped in October or November. That way, all providers can start immunizing high-risk patients early.
Aventis is increasing production by 20 percent to compensate for the loss of a vaccine manufacturer, has upgraded equipment to remain in compliance with federal regulations, and faces increased shipping and handling costs.
All of those things contributed to the higher price of vaccine, Lavenda said.
Health insurers will continue to cover flu shots prescribed by a doctor to high-risk individuals, said spokespeople for Highmark Blue Cross and HealthAmerica. Highmark will not be running its own set of clinics for clients this year. Last year, it provided 10,000 shots in this program, although some of those clients may still qualify for coverage if they are older or high risk.
In Allegheny County, there are more than 500 deaths per year from influenza and pneumonia, making it the fifth-leading cause of death, Cole said. High risk groups include people 65 and older, those with chronic medical conditions, those with weakened immune systems, and women who will be more than three months pregnant during flu season.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the county health department recommend that high-risk groups get flu shots early and that young, healthy people wait to be vaccinated until late November or early December.
Perhaps because of the big push last season to get high-risk folks vaccinated early since they are most likely to develop life-threatening complications from the flu, only 6 percent of reported cases involved seniors, according to the health department. The year before, 40 percent of reported cases were seniors.
This year's flu shot provides protection against Type A/ New Caledonia, Type A/ Moscow and Type B/ Sichuan.
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