Forced to cancel its annual flu shot clinic because ofnationwide shortages, Tufts Health Services has started a publichealth education campaign emphasizing prevention.
The federal government has urged private institutions to giveflu vaccines only to people for whom the flu could be fatal,including infants, the elderly and those with compromised immunesystems.
Universities are not receiving priority for the vaccine, sincemost college students are not part of these at-risk groups,according to Director of Health Services Michelle Bowdler.
"Basically, [the government is] saying that it's illegal forclinicians to give flu vaccines out to a non high-risk person,"Bowdler said. "College students don't fall into the high-riskgroup, but they want to get the flu shot, because they don't wantto be sick in their rooms."
Bowdler was expecting a high turnout for free flu shots thisyear. "What's fascinating is that seven or eight years ago, wemaybe gave out 200 flu shots a year. Then, we started advertisingheavily for free flu shots, and it went up to 500, and then 800,and last year we gave out 1,500 to 1,800 shots," she said.
Health Services bought and paid for 2,500 shots last April foruse this year, Bowdler said.
The money for the cancelled order will instead be used for fluprevention and goods like hand sanitizers and tissues.
"We are putting out information in the residential halls abouthand washing," Bowdler said. "There's a new campaign going oncalled 'cover your cough.' It sounds silly, but it teaches peopleto cough into their sleeve rather than into your hand."
According to Mark Woodin, a lecturer and epidemiologist in theDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the flu shotshortage points to the larger problem of the U.S. health systemrelying on foreign suppliers for the vaccine.
"We just don't have any native vaccine-making ability," Woodinsaid. "We need the capability in this country to make all thevaccine we need."
Woodin likened U.S. dependence on foreign vaccines to ourdependence on foreign oil, but said while we cannot be self-relianton oil, "we can be and should be 100 percent reliant [on domesticvaccines]."
Chiron, the flu shot company whose plant was closed due tocontamination, is a U.S.-owned company located in Liverpool,England. The other manufacturer of flu shots is Aventis-Pasteur, aFrench company. Relatively small amounts of a nasal vaccine calledFluMist is made in California by a company called MedImmune.
The reason most flu vaccine production is foreign-based islargely due to potential losses from unsold vaccines.
"We used to have more vaccine makers," Woodin said. "Some ofthem got out of it because in the early times of the vaccine, therewasn't much advertising for it," causing low demand. "Drug-makerswould be left with millions of doses that couldn't be used."
Woodin said that the American public should be "outraged" aboutthe shortage. "The flu and illnesses like it are the ones mostlikely to break out and kill much more people than usual."
He cited the 1918 flu epidemic, in which nearly 60 millionpeople were killed, as an example of the dangers of influenza andsimilar respiratory diseases.
"It's not if a really dangerous flu or SARS-like virus breaksout, it's when," he said. "We need to be much more prepared."
According to Woodin, increased government investment in vaccineproduction and research into flu-like diseases could prevent suchan outbreak. "We have all the expertise, all the ability," he said."All we would need is to ramp up our program."
For this flu season, Woodin said he feared that wealthierpatients would pay high prices for vaccines, allowing "a lot ofpeople who shouldn't really get" a flu shot to be vaccinated.
"Every dose that gets taken by a person who is not high risk, istaking it from someone who is," he said.
Bowdler urged students not to panic. "For most students, the fluwould be uncomfortable and lousy, but the college population is notthe group that the federal government or the CDC is concerned aboutat this time," she said.
"We want people to stay calm. It's not something that collegestudents should be frantic about," Bowdler said.
