# 3823
If there is one bright, albeit slightly ironic, spot in this fall’s flu season it has been the high demand for seasonal flu vaccines.
Perhaps this bodes well for a better-than-expected uptake of the H1N1 vaccine, just now rolling out in some communities around the nation.
With luck, this is a healthy habit many people will maintain in the years to come.
I got my seasonal jab in mid-September, and I was taken aback by just how many venues I spotted providing the flu vaccine in a quick drive around my town. Every grocery store, pharmacy, and big-box store was either having, or advertising, flu shot clinics.
The irony is that we are seeing this kind of demand during a year where right now there is almost no seasonal flu circulating, and we aren’t entirely certain when, or even if, the strains covered by this seasonal shot are going to return.
I knew that when I took my shot, gambling on the notion that after we see a big H1N1 wave, we could see a second seasonal wave later in the winter or spring. And there is always the `B’ flu virus, which is (hopefully) covered by this year’s shot.
So I consider getting the seasonal shot a reasonable `insurance move’, and would encourage others to get it as well.
The seasonal shot is not expected, however, to provide any protection against the H1N1 pandemic flu.
While there are spot shortages out there, plenty of locations do have the vaccine, and so finding a shot shouldn’t be that difficult. Some doctor’s offices, and health departments may not have them, but the odds are some pharmacy, grocery store, or other venue in your town does.
The lesson here is, when you see the shot being offered, don’t put it off . . . stop and get it.
Walgreens reports that they’ve delivered twice as many shots (2.5 million) in the last month as they did in 4 months of last year’s flu season.
This report from Bloomberg.
CVS, Walgreen Have Spot Flu-Vaccine Shortages as Demand Surges
By Carol Wolf and Tom Randall
Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- CVS Caremark Corp. and Walgreen Co., the two largest U.S. drugstore chains, are experiencing spot shortages of seasonal-flu vaccines because of increased demand.
CVS MinuteClinics in Austin, Texas, and New York ran out of the seasonal-flu vaccine within the past week before restocking, according to calls to 13 stores by Bloomberg News. Calls to eight Walgreen stores in Manhattan on Oct. 5 determined none had it at the time. There are also shortages in the South and Southeast, said James Cohn, a Walgreen spokesman.
Demand for seasonal-flu vaccinations has soared because of public awareness of the H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, Cohn said. Walgreen administered twice as many doses in September as in the entire 2008 flu season, he said. CVS’s clinics have vaccinated a “significantly higher number of people” than last year, said Michael DeAngelis, a spokesman.
“We are experiencing very high demand for seasonal-flu shots and we are working closely with multiple suppliers to meet this demand on a day-to-day basis,” DeAngelis said in an e-mail yesterday. “When we experience isolated shortages of vaccine supply, we do all we can to replenish these locations.”
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