Premature fall in the swine flu vaccination rates worries health officials

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDApr 2 2010

Last fall there was a mad rush for the HINI vaccine for the deadly swine flu that had gripped countries across the world. H1N1 flu has killed about 12,000 Americans and put 265,000 into the hospital in the last pandemic. This year has seen a few signs of seasonal flu, which kills about 36,000 people in the United States each year and puts 200,000 in the hospital.

However this year there has been thousands of surplus unused vaccines being disposed off by the health officials. The CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has already shipped 126 million doses of the precious vaccine under a $1.6 billion federal program, but officials estimate that only between 72 million and 81 million people have been vaccinated across the country. As of the end of January 2010, only about one fifth of U.S. adults had been vaccinated and more than one third of American children, according to CDC estimate.

Paul Kuehnert, executive director of the Kane County Health Department said, "If you think back to (the fall), we had demand that outstripped supply, and then as we started getting all the vaccine in December, the demand just really fell off…It's certainly disappointing, the timing and the fact that we have vaccine on our hands now."

Thomas Skinner, a spokesman for the CDC in Atlanta, said they wanted "to be sure we had a dose for everyone who wanted it. There was a lot of uncertainty about what we were going to be up against." The United States has contracts with five influenza vaccine makers -- Novartis, AstraZeneca unit MedImmune, Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline and Australian vaccine maker CSL.

According to Melaney Arnold, a spokesperson for the state health department Illinois, this drop in vaccination rates bodes ill and they have embarked upon a new advertising campaign to appeal to people that swine flu is still a threat till end of April or early May and they should consider vaccination.

"A lot of people have become complacent about it," Arnold said.

Another problem that these surplus vaccines have given rise to is the sheer amount of medical waste generated from the doses that expire this week. This to be stated simply is that millions of tax payer’s dollars are going down the drain. Some are considering giving away these vaccines to those in need. For example the Lake County Health Department provided some of the vaccines on Thursday to people at New Hope Christian Fellowship Church in Mundelein, where Mexican immigrants had come to apply for Mexican passports.

Many have criticized the fact that although the vaccine was brought into the market pretty fast, it still failed to cover the flu season.

Health officials said Thursday it is important to continue vaccinating against H1N1, even though the outbreak peaked months ago. The virus is still spreading "at fairly low levels" in Minnesota, said Dr. Ruth Lynfield, the state epidemiologist, and is spreading fast in some parts of the country, notably the southeast.