Flu shot shortage seen as temporary
Staggered delivery, high demand cited
A combination of high demand and staggered shipments is producing shortages of influenza vaccine in Massachusetts that public health authorities said they expect to be temporary.
In some cases, physicians have been told by drug suppliers they won't get their vaccine shipments for several weeks, if at all. In other cases, clinics were so successful in vaccinating high-risk patients in early October that they ran out of shots and must await new caches.
There's nothing new about glitches in the system for making and delivering flu vaccine -- they've happened during several recent flu seasons. But after last year's unprecedented shortage of shots, health authorities said, patients are more determined than ever to make sure they get vaccinated against influenza.
''We're certainly getting a number of calls seeking vaccine," said Dr. Anita Barry, Boston's director of communicable disease control. ''We're at that bottleneck period. We tell them vaccine is going to be coming in. Sit tight."
Federal health agencies earlier this week issued assurances that they expected enough vaccine to satisfy demand before the peak of flu season, which, in Massachusetts, can be as late as February. At last count, at least 73 million doses of vaccine were expected to be made available to US patients.
No widespread shortages have been reported in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the nation, according to public health agencies.
At the primary care clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the staff aggressively sought out patients at greatest risk of complications from the flu, urging them to be vaccinated before shots were made more broadly available. Until Monday, vaccine was limited to such high-risk patients.
''And they did a spectacular job at that clinic of capturing high-risk patients," said Dr. Sharon Wright, who oversees patient vaccination at Beth Israel Deaconess. ''Now, they are going to experience a transient shortage because they were so good about using it already."
The clinic, Wright said, gave out 3,300 shots by Monday. She expects the clinic's supply to be exhausted within a week but that new doses should arrive by the middle of November.
Some pharmacies and medical practices have already deferred scheduled vaccination sessions. The
Those cancellations are related in part to delayed shipments from one of the three makers of shots,
''We've been assured by our suppliers that we will get the vaccine we need to reschedule these events," DeAngelis said.
There have been no such assurances at a Brookline clinic affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess. An expected shipment never arrived -- only an e-mail from the supplier that made no promise about how much vaccine would arrive or when. In turn, the clinic sent an e-mail to patients notifying them that three scheduled periods for getting a shot had been canceled.
''The patients are asking why don't we have it if Stop & Shop is saying they have vaccine available," said Maryann Noonan, referral coordinator at the Brookline clinic.
To some extent, the delays in vaccine shipment are intentional. The largest maker of shots, Sanofi Pasteur, said in a statement that its system of staggered delivery was designed in conjunction with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That system, the company said, is designed to assure that the initial lots of vaccine are directed to high-risk patients.
Dr. Donald Green, who has a family practice in Reading, said his supplier told him he may not get any vaccine. Green said he knows colleagues who have heard the same thing.
Before he sent patients home from Winchester Hospital this week, Green said, he made sure they got their flu shots there.
Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com. 