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Doyle restricts flu shots

It’s official — most University of Wisconsin students will have to forego flu vaccinations this year.

In light of the severe national shortage of flu shots, Gov. Jim Doyle and Department of Health and Family Services Secretary Helene Nelson issued an emergency Public Health Order Oct. 15 providing specific criteria a person must meet in order to qualify for the vaccine this year.

Children under 23 months of age, adults over 65 years of age and persons age 2-64 with chronic underlying diseases are among the groups eligible for a flu vaccine, in addition to pregnant women and health care workers with direct patient contact.

“This public health order is one step in a comprehensive strategy Wisconsin is employing that will ensure that those who are at the greatest risk will receive the care they need,” Doyle said in announcing the order.

As part of the plan, the Department of Public Health will track the spread of influenza throughout the state and determine where to best allocate vaccine resources. It will also watch for price gouging by suppliers looking to take advantage of the limited supply of vaccinations.

The order will be posted at all health care providers administering the vaccine and those who violate the order will be subject to immediate court proceedings.

The national shortage of flu shots stems from an announcement in early October from manufacturer Chiron Corporation revealing the company would not be able to produce its Fluvirin vaccination for the 2004-05 flu season. The California-based company’s production plant in Liverpool, England, lost its license due to contamination concerns, effectively halving the supply of flu shots in the U.S.

As U.S. health care providers have scrambled to fill the vaccination void, President Bush has encouraged people in good condition to forego a flu shot this year. Doyle and Nelson’s order now makes such action mandatory in Wisconsin.

The news should not be troubling to healthy people, however, according to UW professor of family medicine Cynthia Haq.

“Most healthy people will be pretty miserable with the flu, but it’s not going to kill them,” Haq said. “Many college students get the flu and if they get it they’ll probably miss a few days of school.”

At UW, only a third of the students who normally get the shot will be able to do so this year, according to Craig Roberts of University Health Services. Approximately 6,500 students receive a flu shot each year, but UHS has only 2,000 shots on hand for this flu season.

“For students, the main criteria for a shot is having an underlying chronic medical condition,” Roberts said. “Most of the students who apply [for a shot] we already know about, those with asthma or diabetes, and they will be receiving an e-mail this week concerning their [eligibility for a shot].”

UHS will attempt to get more vaccinations, but whether such efforts will succeed is uncertain at this point, Roberts added.

“This year we’re just immunizing those with the greatest risk of developing complications from the flu,” Roberts said, indicating those at risk can develop pneumonia, and sometimes even die, as a result of the virus.

Haq said older people, and particularly those with lung or heart problems, are particularly vulnerable to the flu. How severe this year’s influenza outbreak will be, Haq said, is still up in the air.

“It’s hard to tell whether this will be a bad year, because year to year the strains of flu vary, and we don’t know until how bad it is until it gets here,” Haq said.