Last year's flu data offer insights for coming season

Better communication is recommended to help eliminate distribution problems as the vaccine makes its way from manufacturers' plants to patients' arms.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. July 17, 2006.

Washington -- Physicians, vaccine distributors and manufacturers participate in an intricate dance each flu season, but the steps aren't always well understood. A look at the data from last year's influenza season reveals the root of some of the confusion.

Bottom line: even though the problems that plagued the system seemed to lie with distribution, the supply side was actually at fault.

The major hiccup, of course, was that manufacturer Chiron, now part of the drug firm Novartis, did not deliver all of its promised doses and the orders it did fulfill arrived later in the season than physicians expected.

Ultimately, this circumstance appears to have had disproportionate impact among physicians.

Specifically, data that were collected at the January National Influenza Vaccine Summit, an initiative co-sponsored by the AMA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed that while 39% of the total supply of vaccine went to physicians last season, 80% of physicians' orders were placed through distributors rather than manufacturers.

Since Chiron, one of only two major sources of injectible vaccine last season, sold entirely through distributors, all fits and starts in their plant's production process were clearly felt in physicians' offices.

The data were analyzed by the Health Industry Distributors Assn. and published as a market brief titled "2006 Influenza Vaccine Production and Distribution."