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Published Tuesday, November 03, 2009 in Local

Small shipment H1N1 vaccine in Coweta

By Jeff Bishop

The Newnan Times-Herald

A new shipment of 200 doses of injectable H1N1 or "swine flu" vaccine has arrived at the Coweta County Health Department, but District 4 is limiting its availability.

Until Monday, only pregnant women were being offered access to the vaccine, with consent from an obstetrician, according to District 4 directives.

However, those directives have been bent a bit depending on the circumstances, Coweta County Health Department Nursing Director Alice Jackson said Monday.

"We're trying to follow that rule, those criteria given to us by District 4," said Jackson. "But we do have a lot of people walking in and wanting the vaccine, and not a whole lot of them are pregnant women."

Hayla Hall of District 4 said that "if any vaccine is left" Tuesday, then it will be made available to children 6 months to 2 years old, "because they are too young to receive the Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (nasal spray)."

The injectable vaccine will also be made available today to the following groups:

n Children and young adults 2-24 years old who can't take the nasal spray vaccine;

n Parents and caregivers of children less than 6 months who can't obtain or take the nasal spray vaccine;

n Critical medical staff, including EMS transport;

n Medically-fragile individuals or persons aged 25-64 who have medical conditions that put them at higher risk of influenza-related complications who can't obtain or take nasal spray vaccine.

Hall said she does "not know how much is available right now," but on Monday the Coweta County Health Department reported having "less than 100 doses." However, the health department should "receive an additional 200 doses" in the immediate future -- perhaps by today.

Jackson said she "won't know" until today how much vaccine will be available.

"All I can tell you is that we got a couple of hundred doses the other day, and we may get some more soon," possibly by Monday evening, she said on Monday afternoon.

"I have no idea when more shipments might be coming in," said Jackson. "We anticipated getting more, and we didn't think it would be quite this long of a wait. We hardly got any notice when the new shipment arrived. It just appeared. Not that we're complaining."

Jackson said she would like to see the vaccine made available at locations other than the health department.

"I think if it were available at other places in the community it wouldn't seem quite so unreachable," said Jackson. "There has been some frustration out there for some people -- especially for those who work directly in the hospital" or in the health care field, and who, therefore, may be at more risk of coming into contact with the virus.

"That's the kind of group we expect to be opening this up to on Tuesday," said Jackson.

She said the 700 doses of nasal mist vaccine are long gone.

"That's the first thing we got," she said. "We've used all of that. We don't have any of that left."

Jackson said the health department has tried to remain sensitive to individual circumstances, in spite of restrictions placed on the administration of the vaccine.

"We understand that some people have taken off from work to get the vaccine, and that they thought they could get it because they've been able to get it in the past. We're certainly trying to honor our past appointments and we're trying to advise people, while sticking to the guidelines as best we can."

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