By Cole Waterman
The Bay City Times
BAY CITY, Mich. — While health departments throughout Michigan are preparing to combat two flu strains — the seasonal variation and the H1N1, or swine, type — Bay County officials are looking to quell the public’s concern of alleged vaccine shortages.
“We’ve not heard there’s going to be a shortage, but there will be a delay in production capacity,” said Marilyn Laurus, maternal child health services manager at the Bay County Community Health Department, 1200 Washington in Bay City.
Laurus said her agency has not yet received any official alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta that would indicate a deficient amount of vaccinations.
The delay stems from the fact that the swine flu did not appear until production of the standard flu vaccine had already begun.
“There will be a delay in getting the amount of vaccine to everybody that we’d like to get vaccinated early on,” said Eden Wells, medical epidemiologist for the Lansing-based Michigan Department of Community Health.
Early projections were to have enough vaccine to accommodate 100 million people in the U.S. by mid-October, but that amount has been altered to 45 million, Wells said. “We’ll generate more in November onward, and vaccinate as may as we can with what we have and get more in from companies as they manufacture it.”
The target groups for H1N1 include pregnant women, children under 5, health-care workers and emergency medical services personnel, household contacts and caregivers for children younger than six months, all people aged six months through 24, and people aged 25 through 64 who have health conditions associated with hire risks of medical complications.
“Our ultimate goal is to vaccinate more people than what’s in those initial groups,” Wells said.
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