Posted on 10/05/2004 2:07:50 PM PDT by Libloather
N.C.'s flu disaster plan
10/5/2004 3:45 PM
By: News 14 Carolina Staff
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has a flu disaster plan.
Officials are preparing to respond to a possible worldwide flu pandemic. A pandemic is illness and death worldwide, caused by a resistant flu strain.
Researchers are working on developing vaccines.
Health officials said people can help by getting their flu shot and limiting travel during a flu epidemic.
North Carolina predicts a pandemic would cost an estimated one million doctor visits, 22,000 hospitalizations and almost 5,000 deaths.
From http://www.healthscout.com/news/1/521621/main.html
Sudden Flu Shot Shortage Stuns U.S.
Supplier halted; talk moves to rationing remaining doses
By Amanda Gardner and John Dillon
HealthDay Reporters
TUESDAY, Oct. 5 (HealthDayNews) -- British health authorities on Tuesday suspended the license of a key maker of influenza vaccine in the United States, leaving health officials scrambling to replace nearly half of the country's supply and talking of rationing what will be available.
Just a month ago, top U.S. health officials expressed confidence that there would be 100 million doses of flu vaccine for the upcoming season even though a key manufacturer, Chiron Corp., reported that some of its vaccine was tainted and would delay the shipment.
All that changed dramatically when a U.K. agency, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), temporarily suspended Chiron's license to manufacture the vaccine, known as Fluvirin, in a Liverpool plant. This move is "preventing the company from releasing any of the product during the 2004-2005 influenza season," Chiron said in a statement.
Howard Pien, president, CEO, and chairman of the board of Chiron, said in a news teleconference that the company got word of the suspension at 3 a.m. Pacific time. The move immediately halted the manufacture of flu vaccine at its Liverpool facility, which is the only facility authorized to supply flu vaccine to the U.S.
"It is with profound regret, with profound regret, that we will be unable to meet public health needs this influenza season," Pien said.
The problem was with the sterility of the vaccine, which Pien said was confined to a limited number of lots. Chiron had gotten to the root of the problem, he said.
The British move "is disappointing and unexpected, but we respect the regulatory authorities' judgment because it is based on concerns over safety," Pien said.
The announcement left U.S. health officials doing a complete U-turn about the availability of flu shots at the worst possible time, when facilities start scheduling vaccinations. Whereas in recent weeks they said anyone who wanted a flu shot could get one this season, they now are left to a major triage operation.
"Clearly, the loss of the Chiron flu vaccine poses a serious challenge to our vaccine supply for the upcoming flu season," the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a prepared statement. "The Department has begun pursuing contingencies for this loss of supply."
In the meantime, officials are seeking help from the public as well as the medical community to ration what will be available. "Our immediate focus will be on making sure that the supply we do have reaches those who are most vulnerable," the HHS statement said. "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is convening its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to prioritize its recommendations on who should get the flu vaccine for this season based on the new vaccine supply information."
The plan is "to make sure that the vaccine goes to those who truly need it most," the HHS statement added.
HHS said it anticipated having approximately 54 million doses of vaccine from Aventis, and another 1 million to 2 million doses of FluMist, a nasal spray. This falls far short of what authorities had planned: HHS had expected to have the largest amount of flu vaccine ever, 100 million doses, available this season, compared with a demand of about 87 million doses last flu season.
"This is the result of the policy of putting all our eggs in one manufacturing basket," said Dr. Charles Gonzalez, an infectious diseases expert at New York University Medical Center. "This is going to lead to a certain amount of rationing and restricting. The flu season is here. We have to start vaccinating now."
"The impact may be significant in that we may have to ration the flu vaccine, particular in pediatrics," added Dr. Adam Aponte, director of North General Diagnostic and Treatment Center and chair of pediatrics and ambulatory care at North General Hospital in New York City.
Also, this year, for the first time, health officials are recommending that the youngest young -- children 6 to 23 month olds old -- get vaccinated. "That's new for this season, so we have that population as well," Aponte said.
HHS said it was exploring whether more flu vaccine could be manufactured but it also admitted that this was a long shot, a sentiment echoed elsewhere.
"It's just not going to happen," Gonzalez said.
In August, the CDC announced that Chiron's supply would arrive about a month late because some doses appeared to be contaminated. It was not clear if this is the same problem unearthed by British authorities in recent days.
Flu shots start becoming available in October. According to the CDC, the flu kills about 36,000 people and causes 114,000 to be hospitalized in an average year.
"As a health-care provider, you never want to deny anyone anything, particularly flu vaccine," Aponte said. "We should not be in this situation. Why is it that we place ourselves in this position every year when we are hustling to get flu vaccine?"
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov ) has more on influenza.
5000 deaths out of a population of several billion hardly ranks as a threat.
There are probably at least 5000 dying from pneumonia every month in the US. So what's the big deal?
this must be Bush's fault,too.
The Tony Blair Govt just pulled the license of a vaccine maker. Blairs fault this time.
And there isn't. All hospitals and large public health agencies have disaster preparedness plans. An influenza pandemic is just one of about 2 dozen scenarios that are common across all 50 states. I work in public health and this has been true for last 20 years I know of.
I don't know what to say about the vaccine shortage - we have enough here in Colorado (at the moment at least). The current vaccines are only really beneficial to people who are compromised one way or another. If you are in good health, the common flu strains will not kill you. If you get an uncommon strain, the current vaccine will not protect you.
All flu vaccines every year are created for the purpose of protecting the public from a theoretical pandemic. That does not mean anyone is expecting a pandemic this year.
yes ,but bush coerced Blair.he's part of that coalition
of the coerced!
I believe the 5000 estimated deaths would be for North Carolina alone if such a pandemic were to happen. Even now during a "normal" flu season, roughly 35,000 American die due to influenza.
(RXSalesman)
Think I'll trust my first instinct on this one.
I think they are referring to the population of the state of NC not the whole US. Even at that 5000 is a very low death rate.
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