Tetanus vaccine shortage leads to rationing

Hospitals and physicians' offices are likely to face reduced supplies until the end of 2001.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. March 19, 2001.

Washington -- Physicians are being urged to hold off administering routine tetanus booster shots until vaccine supplies are back up to regular levels -- which probably won't occur until the end of this year.

"We think anyone who needs tetanus vaccine for wound management would be able to get it," said Lynn Zanardi, MD, MPH, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention medical epidemiologist. In addition, the standard vaccination course for children age 2 months to 6 years is not affected.

Meanwhile, to ensure that there will be sufficient supplies to inoculate others who really need the vaccine, Aventis Pasteur, the one manufacturer still producing the vaccine, is rationing the amount that can be purchased by hospitals and physicians' offices.

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has also put in place recommendations for prioritizing who should receive the vaccine.

The committee had thought last fall, when it first made the recommendations, that the shortage would be over by the beginning of this year, said Dr. Zanardi. But the decision by Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories to stop production of the vaccine means the shortage will likely continue until late this year, she said.

Patients who require the vaccine for the treatment of wounds or burns are being given top priority by the CDC, as are patients traveling to a country where the risk for diphtheria is high. Because there is no separate diphtheria vaccine, only the combined tetanus and diphtheria, or Td, vaccine affords protection. [...]