By M. Alexander Otto, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Nov. 11--nonprofit company will give 1,500 flu shots Tuesday at the Tacoma Dome on a first-come, first-served basis, bringing relief to at least some of the many local residents worried about missing their flu shot this year.
Only those at high-risk for pneumonia and other serious flu complications will get the vaccine from Visiting Nurse Services of the Northwest, sponsor of the event. No one under 19 can get a shot.
Anyone who misses the event will have a second chance Nov. 30 when the group, a provider of home nursing services that also conducts immunization clinics, will give another 1,500 shots to high-risk people at Qwest Field in Seattle.
Such sporadic clinics are typical of the way flu vaccine is trickling into the area as the shortage continues.
Pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices are immunizing patients when they can get vaccine, but few can predict when shipments will arrive and no one has as much vaccine as they want or need.
Eighty-three-year-old Jean Sienko was one of the lucky ones recently when Cost-Plus Prescriptions of Tacoma held a flu shot clinic at Commencement Terrace, an apartment complex in the Stadium District with a sizeable elderly population.
'I had given up,' she said, on getting a shot. 'I was just thrilled to pieces when they came here.'
Help is on the way: 160,000 vaccine doses will arrive in Washington state over the next two months. Health officials are working to determine how much Pierce and other counties will get. The extra doses will not cover everyone in the state who might want a shot, they say, but it will help.
The flu season does not look like it will be early or particularly bad this year either, said epidemiologist Nigel Turner, a public health manager at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. Washington has seen no flu outbreaks to date.
For now, whether area residents can get a shot depends largely on which of the country's two vaccine suppliers their providers ordered from.
Those who went with Aventis Pasteur are in relatively good shape, because the company had no problem with its vaccine this year and largely was able to fill its orders.
The extra 165,000 doses are part of the 7.2 million doses the company had left over after meeting most of its obligations. The rest will be distributed to other state health authorities in coming weeks. States will get an additional 1.2 million doses for children, as well.
Group Health Cooperative, an area nonprofit HMO, is an Aventis customer and expects to be able to vaccinate most of its 85,000 high-risk patients this year, spokesman Kirk Williamson said. Group Health has secured 70,000 doses and has given about half of it at its 23 medical centers in the Puget Sound area.
Cost Plus and Visiting Nurse Services also got their vaccine from Aventis.
The Franciscan Health System, which operates St. Joseph Medical Center and other local hospitals, however, ordered from the second company, Chiron, and found itself with no vaccine after that company's supply was pulled from the market Oct. 5 on fears is was contaminated.
Franciscan has been able to secure only 800 doses so far, donated from area providers, and is using them to immunize doctors, nurses and others who work with the sick.
Meanwhile, local doctors are vaccinating high-risk patients against pneumonia, a sometimes-fatal flu complication, and are ready with antiviral medications if there is an outbreak. Some also are using an inhaled vaccine called FluMist, but it is not appropriate for high-risk patients because it contains a weakened, but live, flu virus. Theoretically, it could cause the flu in people with weak immune systems.
Hand washing, covering mouths when coughing and staying home if sick remain important, epidemiologist Turner explained.
WHO NEEDS A SHOT?
--Anyone 65 and older
--People 2 to 64 with chronic medical conditions
--Women who will be pregnant during flu season
--Nursing home and long-term care facility residents
--Health-care workers with direct patient care
--Caregivers and household contacts of children under 6 months
--Children between 6 and 23 months
--Children 6 months to 18 years on chronic aspirin therapy
HOW TO GET A SHOT
--Visiting Nurse Services of the Northwest will give 1,500 flu shots Tuesday at the Tacoma Dome on a first-come, first-served basis from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
--Only adults at risk for serious flu complications qualify. For those without Medicare Part B or Secure Horizons insurance, shots will cost $20 each.
--Visiting Nurse Services recommends bringing any medication you might need while you wait and dressing warmly, though a short-sleeved shirt will help move the line along. The dome's concession stand will not be open.
--Pneumonia vaccine also will be available.
Information is available at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department Web site at www.tpchd.org.
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SNY, SAN, CHIR,
