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Flu shot seekers get dose of reality
It's the question of the week: Who will be able to get a flu shot this year, and when? Health officials announced a plan to allocate the nation's limited supply of 22.4 million doses of Aventis Pasteur vaccine that has not yet been distributed to nursing homes, hospitals, medical groups and public health departments serving high-risk people, but details on where it's going are sketchy. One thing for sure is that it will go out in a trickle, not a flood. The first 14 million doses will be sent out over the next 6-8 weeks, at the rate of about 3 million doses a week, said Patrick Libbey, director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. (Related story: Experts answer questions about the flu shortage)Thousands of flu clinics were canceled last week, and some state and local health departments said they have no vaccine at all, after Chiron announced that its license to make flu vaccine at its Liverpool, England, plant had been suspended by British authorities because of contamination concerns. Chiron was not able to deliver the 46 million to 48 million doses of vaccine it had promised, abruptly cutting the expected U.S. vaccine supply roughly in half. Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-10-15 |
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