Feb. 22--Fearing that the 500 doses of H1N1 flu vaccine she had wouldn't be enough to supply the clinics she was running, Priscilla Munro ordered an extra 200.
At clinics in January, the Visiting Nurses of the Lower Valley, where Munro is executive director, administered more than 500 doses.
But their latest clinic, held earlier this month in Essex, drew only about 20 people. And now Munro is contemplating how to use up the 100 or so doses she has left.
"I'm really committed to trying to move those out, but I'm also prepared to turn them back in if we can't use them," she said.
Little more than three months ago, with the H1N1 flu outbreak at its peak and the vaccine in short supply, patients were swamping doctors' offices with requests for a swine flu shot.
Now, with cases of H1N1 flu down dramatically, even those who are giving the vaccine away aren't finding many takers.
Health officials are still urging people to get vaccinated, noting that the virus is still circulating and that there could be a third wave of the outbreak, which has happened in previous flu pandemics.
Typically, flu season peaks in January or February, and so far this year most of the flu virus circulating is H1N1, with little recorded seasonal flu activity.
"Even though the levels of H1N1 have decreased over the past few weeks, the disease is still in the community, we are still seeing cases and hospitalizations, so getting vaccinated against the H1N1 flu is the most effective way to prevent getting the flu," said Diana Lejardi, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Health. "We really don't want people to become complacent because there's a decrease in disease and they think that it's over, because there's really no way to tell."
Demand Way Down
For now, demand for the vaccine is far from what it was late last year, when health departments kept waiting lists for the vaccine and clinics drew hundreds of people.
That's reflected in data on vaccine distribution from the state Department of Public Health, which takes requests for the vaccine from health care providers.
Overall, between October and the second week of February, Connecticut health care providers received 1.18 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine -- enough for about a third of the state's population.
The rate at which the vaccine has been coming into the state has slowed in recent weeks, although it is now enough to fulfill the orders that medical providers have placed with the state health department. Much of the vaccine arrived in November and December, with more than 100,000 doses given out during five individual weeks in that period.
By contrast, only 11,100 doses were distributed in the second week of January, and the weekly totals have fallen since. In the first week of February, 900 doses of H1N1 vaccine were distributed in Connecticut. The week after, only 500 were distributed.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had been posting regular Web updates on how many vaccines had been allocated, ordered and shipped, stopped doing so at the end of January, "due to the ample supply of H1N1 vaccine."
To Ramona K. Anderson, immunization coordinator at the New Britain Health Department, the drop in demand isn't as simple as people not wanting a flu shot.
People don't seem to seek it out as much as they once did. Calls to the health department's H1N1 hot line have dropped, Anderson said.
But the health department has been taking the vaccine into the community, holding clinics at city companies, in nursing homes and at public assistance program offices. In those locations, Anderson said, they find people who want the vaccine but haven't gotten it yet. Some say they didn't know where to go. Others think the threat of the virus has passed, she said.
"The vaccine's still good and still offers protection, so we're still giving it," Anderson said. She estimated that the department has administered about 3,000 doses so far.
Walgreens, which has administered more than 1.8 million doses of the vaccine nationwide, now gives out thousands of doses a day, but the pace has slowed, spokesman Jim Cohn said.
Good Till Mid-2011
Munro, whose organization serves the lower Connecticut River Valley, has heard people raise concerns about the safety of the vaccine, concerns that she tries to allay.
"Generally speaking, I think the demand has been much higher for the seasonal flu [vaccine]," she said. Her organization surpassed its previous levels of seasonal flu vaccination in the fall. "We could have kept on inoculating but we don't have any more vaccine available to us," she said.The Visiting Nurses of the Lower Valley has another clinic planned this week and hopes to use up some of the H1N1 vaccine there.
But if not, Munro said, there is a bright side: The H1N1 vaccine is good until mid-2011, meaning that it could be used after this flu season.
Charles I. Motes Jr., Southington's director of health, has seen a similar slowdown in demand since the end of January.
"Probably it's not No.1 on people's hit parade right now," he said. "If we have another bump in [flu] activity this spring, we probably will see people getting really interested in it again."
Motes estimated that the department has more than 1,000 doses on hand, having administered about 2,500. The town health department still offers 90-minute clinics each Wednesday and Thursday, and has been vaccinating 40 to 50 people a week, he said.
Still, he said, doing that for 10 weeks means vaccinating several hundred people.
"I'm not going to raise my nose at that," Motes said. "One person with immunity is one less person I have to be overly concerned about getting the disease."
-----
To see more of The Hartford Courant, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.courant.com/.
Copyright (c) 2010, The Hartford Courant, Conn.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
NYSE:WAG,