HEALTH

Next flu vaccine season off to shaky start

With this season winding down, attention is shifting to next year.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. March 7, 2005.

As this season's window of opportunity to administer the flu vaccine comes to a close, the attention of those in the supply chain -- from physicians who give the shot to the people involved in manufacturing it -- has turned to next year.

And there is already a hiccup.

Many physicians are having problems placing their pre-orders for next season's supply, an activity usually on the to-do list at this time.

"I'm very optimistic, but it does concern me," said Roger Baxter, MD, clinical leader of the flu outreach program at Kaiser Permanente in California.

At press time, neither sanofi pasteur, formerly Aventis Pasteur, which usually makes more than half the flu vaccine supply, or FFF Enterprises, a large distributor based in Temecula, Calif., was taking pre-bookings. And, although Henry Schein, another large distributor based in Melville, N.Y., was doing so, it offered no guarantee, noting that if a new round of problems were to occur, the company would use this information to direct supplies to those who need it the most.

Ultimately, the situation is the domino-effect result of the 2004-05 season, which began with an expected vaccine surplus of nearly 100 million doses that was transformed into a shortage when Chiron Corp. withdrew from the market amid contamination problems. The impact now is an unusually high level of marketplace uncertainty.

For example, it's unclear who will be making vaccine. Chiron has issued statements announcing its intent to re-enter the market, although this has yet to be OK'd by regulators. ID Biomedical, a Canadian firm, also might step into the fray -- as could others -- contingent on FDA approval.

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