Production of Flu Vaccine Supply Delayed 2 Months

Production of the nation’s supply of flu vaccine has been delayed up to two months and supplies will be short during the best time to protect patients, pharmaceutical firms and public health officials said Monday.

The companies blame the situation on late notification from the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta on what type of vaccine will be needed this year. The CDC said the problem stemmed from the fact that some of the viruses causing this year’s flu take unusually long to cultivate for vaccines.

The largest producer of the vaccines, Wyeth Laboratories Inc., has usually shipped the bulk of its 9 million doses by September.

This year, Wyeth will be sending vaccine to physicians through early to mid-November, company spokeswoman Audrey Ashby said. Then it will take additional time to get people in for injections.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Health Services Department, Vivian Rosenberg, said the county has already received 75% of the flu vaccine ordered and expects Wyeth to ship the remainder this week.

‘We’re Very Lucky’

“We’re in very good shape,” Rosenberg said. “We’re very lucky.”

October and November are considered the best times for immunization.

The highest-risk group for the flu, and traditionally last on the list of those immunized, are older people living in close quarters in metropolitan nursing homes, said Paul Stehr-Green, an immunologist with the Centers for Disease Control.

They need their flu shots by middle to late November, he said. Doctors prefer to immunize them last because their systems do not hold on to the antibody as long as younger people’s, he said.

The drug makers said they were late in gearing up vaccine production because of late notification from the CDC on the strains that are to be targeted this flu season. Also, some of the strains targeted by the CDC require a vaccine that takes longer than usual to produce.

“We didn’t learn about the final strain until much later than normal,” said Marshall Molloy, spokesman for Parke-Davis, another flu vaccine maker. He said the notification usually comes in February, but did not come until April this year.