70 Million Doses of Swine Flu Jabs Delivered via Undisclosed Sites in USA
Andrea Gerlin | Bloomberg News
Dec. 10, 2009
U.S. almost ready to give swine flu shot to all
The U. S. is preparing to offer swine flu shots to everyone who wants one in the next few weeks, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said Monday.
"We're at the stage now where vaccine will be available to most anyone who wants it," Anthony Fiore, associate chief of policy and liaison activities at the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases' Influenza Division, said in a presentation at the World Influenza Congress in Brussels.
The U. S., like other countries, is vaccinating people most at risk of contracting the illness first. These priority groups include pregnant women, people who have close contact with children under six months of age, who can't receive the vaccine, health workers, people aged six months to 24 years old and adults under 65 who have chronic medical conditions.
About 70 million doses of the shot have been shipped to state and local health authorities in the U. S., Fiore said in an interview. San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. is distributing the vaccine from manufacturers to four undisclosed sites and then on to 150,000 local sites, said Michael Angelastro of the U. S. Biomedical Advancement Research and Development Authority.
Fiore said the CDC expects to have estimates of the number of people who had received the vaccine in the U. S. in the next week or two. About 10 percent of older people and 10 percent of pregnant women have probably received the vaccine so far and about 20 percent of young children have probably had one of the two doses they need, he said.