NEW YORK - A developing shortage of vaccine against childhood meningitis is expected to inconvenience some pediatricians and parents, but should not become a public health threat, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration say.
Merck recalled about 1 million doses of its Hib vaccine this week and will probably not make more for about a year, a company official said.
The vaccine protects against Haemophilus influenzae Type B, known as Hib. Most children are not harmed by it, but on rare occasions it can invade the lining of the brain, the bloodstream, or the lungs - causing meningitis, sepsis, or pneumonia, possibly leading to brain damage or death.
Before the vaccine was adopted in the early 1990s, about 20,000 US children a year were seriously harmed and about 1,000 died from Hib. Now, fewer than 100 a year develop any detectable Hib disease.
Merck produces 5 million to 7 million doses of the vaccine a year, about half the US supply. Testing found sterilization problems, so manufacturing was stopped.
