Vaccination decimation

If you're a healthy student somewhere in between the age range of 2 to 64 without a chronic medical condition, your chances of getting a flu shot during this year's severe vaccine shortage are now close to zero. Since the Food and Drug Administration announced last week that the 40 million flu vaccinations impounded from Chiron Corp. of Liverpool, England were considered contaminated, the entire U.S. supply of flu shots was suddenly sliced in half. And though the IU Health Center bought its supply of vaccines from Aventis Pasteur, the other major flu vaccination provider, the sudden shortage has already caused delayed delivery of the anticipated vaccinations.\nThe shipment containing the 1,000 flu vaccinations ordered by the IUHC was scheduled to arrive Friday but didn't. And by the Wednesday before, IUHC Director Hugh Jessup already knew that something was wrong.\n"We remain cautiously optimistic that we'll still get the vaccines," said Jessup. "But they should have shipped Wednesday, and they hadn't moved."\nThe real problem, as Jessup well knows, doesn't end at the inconvenience of a delay.\nAs a result of the unpredictable shortage, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sharply reigned in its guidelines for flu shot eligibility. The major groups that the CDC hopes to still be able to immunize include children aged 6 to 23 months, adults over age 65, pregnant women, nursing home residents, health care workers and out-of-home caregivers. IU's student body, with an age range primarily between 18 to 25, has been disqualified. And as a result, all flu shot clinics planned by the Health Center for this season have been canceled. \nThere just aren't any shots to give, Jessup said.\nAnd the supply is dwindling -- Jessup estimates that from the nearly 1,000 vaccinations that the IUHC had in its supply, 750 had already been distributed when the shortage struck. Of the 250 left, Jessup estimates that the IUHC has around 70.\n"Most people who have really needed it have already come in, because they have to," IUHC Pharmacy Director Cheryl Thomas said. "We usually only give out 5,000 doses a year, which is a very small percentage of the 35,000 students, plus faculty members."\nThe lack of vaccines shouldn't necessarily cause an epidemic of flu, but in this case, the early bird definitely got the worm, Jessup said. But the IUHC is exploring other options for students suffering from the flu in the coming months, most notably FluMist, a nasal vaccination that takes about two weeks to work.\nHowever, IU is currently back ordered on FluMist as well. And Jessup believes that while the IU campus might respond well to FluMist, a problem with FluMist is the fact that it contains live virus, rather than the dead virus used in the vaccine. Putting a live virus out on a campus currently flu-free could have the opposite result -- and give students the flu, Jessup said. And that's a situation Jessup doesn't care to see.\nThe IUHC is stocking up on its supplies of antiviral medication, in case the flu hits early -- as it did last year.\n"If it does hit, I want to make sure we have options," Thomas said. "If you have flu symptoms, come in and be seen within 24 hours of their appearance -- it can make a difference."\nThomas vividly recalls the epidemic of flu that cased the campus last year during November and the beginning of December -- a strange time for the flu to hit, as peak flu season is typically January and February. \n"It was a killer -- a pharmacy killer," said Thomas, noting that the flu vaccines used for herself and her coworkers luckily worked. "We're lucky that nobody here got sick -- I've been here 10 years and I've only seen this happen once."\nJessup wasn't so lucky last year -- he came down with the flu despite his shot. And as a result of his experience he offers students some basic advice.\n"Wash your hands -- it sounds like childish advice, but it works," Jessup said. "And don't share glasses or cigarettes with people, get plenty of rest, exercise three to four times a week to keep your immune system jacked up and eat broccoli."\nIn the meantime, Jessup and Thomas plan to just keep hoping for the vaccine supply to be delivered. However, both feel skeptical about the "temporary" delay promised by the CDC.\n"The official line of the company is that we'll get the doses we ordered ... but that the order will be delayed," Thomas said. "I'm very skeptical of the company line -- I think they just have to say that. We're a college environment, and not nearly as high a priority as a hospital."\nIf they arrive this week, Jessup plans to vaccinate IU students and faculty who fit the CDC guidelines, and then look to the Bloomington community to see if flu shot supplies are short there too, as he expects them to be. Only once the community and the IU members who truly need the vaccine are vaccinated will the flu shots be offered again to the student body.\n"The CDC is really running the show ... and we just have to try to be responsible to everybody," Jessup said.\n-- Contact health and science editor Kelly Phillips at kephilli@indiana.edu.