# 4020
With roughly 80 million kids under the age of 20 in this country, and about half of those under the age of 10 (who would need two shots), it would take nearly 120 million doses of H1N1 vaccine to inoculate them all.
And that doesn’t begin to cover pregnant women, Health Care Workers, or adults with chronic conditions.
As of last Friday, only about 36 million doses of vaccine had been shipped to the states, and less than that had actually been dispensed.
While more vaccine is in the pipeline, and officials promise eventually there will be enough for those who want it, right now we continue to deal with short supplies.
Children who received their first inoculation in early October are now due for their second shot, but many parents are finding those booster shots hard to come by.
This report from MSNBC.
Swine flu booster shots? Good luck with that
Young kids need two doses, but vaccine shortage leaves parents scrambling
By JoNel Aleccia
In a frantic search for swine flu vaccine, Seattle mother Emily Newman called a dozen clinics and some 50 pharmacies before she finally found shots last month for her 2-year-old twins.
“It was our first night's sleep in a long time," said Newman, 39, who responded to msnbc.com’s reader reporting tool, First Person.
But Newman’s relief over protecting her daughter, Rory, and son, Everett, against H1N1 influenza infection was short-lived. She soon realized she had a second worry: What about the booster?
Government health officials say that children younger than 10 need two doses of the vaccine to gain immunity from the pandemic virus that has killed some 4,000 people in the United States since April, including 540 kids.
But a shortage of vaccine has meant fewer than 42 million doses have been delivered nationwide out of at least 120 million expected by now, federal health officials report. A manufacturing delay has sparked long lines, shuttered many flu clinics and sent an ominous message to parents seeking a second round of H1N1 shots: Don't count on it.
While children who have received only one shot may have less than optimum protection, the good news is they are at least partially protected.
That protection will increase when they get their booster shot, even if it is many weeks later than originally recommended.
Back in July I wrote in Murphy's Laws And Vaccine Production about the dangers of overpromising on vaccine deliveries. Vaccine production is frequently fraught with unexpected problems, and yields are often less than hoped for.
Quite frankly, despite the slow arrival of vaccines, and problems in the distribution channels . . . given the enormity of the project . . . things have gone reasonably well so far.
There have been no huge gaffes, and no sign of any safety problems. It could be worse . . .
But I do understand the frustration. I’d like an H1N1 shot myself, but I don’t fall into any of the early priority groups. I will count myself lucky if I can get vaccinated before the year is out.
The silver lining to all of this is we are dealing with a relatively mild swine flu pandemic, and not a high mortality bird flu virus. We got lucky this time.
Our luck may not hold, however, and so it is imperative that we make the investments in vaccine production technology that can avoid – or at least reduce – these sorts of problems in the future.
And we need to do it now.
We’ve no guarantee of another 40 years before the next pandemic arrives.
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