LOS ANGELES AND MEXICO CITY — As the so-called swine flu sweeps through the Northern Hemisphere once again, U.S. officials on Friday downplayed the impact of vaccine shortages, and Mexican officials stressed good hygiene and prompt medical treatment for flu-type symptoms.
Officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had expected about 40 million doses of the swine flu vaccine to be distributed by the end of the month, but it looks as though a maximum of 28 million to 30 million doses will actually be shipped, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. That's about 25% fewer than expected.
"Vaccine production is pretty complex, and it is taking a bit longer than we would hope," she said at a news conference Friday.
In particular, growing the virus in eggs has not yielded as much antigen -- the crucial component of the vaccine -- as is normally obtained with the seasonal flu.
Despite the current low production, however, there are no plans to use adjuvants -- chemicals added to increase the immune response to the antigen -- to extend the supply of the pandemic H1N1 vaccine, said Dr. Jesse Goodman of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Many people who are reluctant to get vaccinated believe, mistakenly, that the adjuvants are toxic.
As of Wednesday, 11.4 million doses of vaccine were available, slightly more than half of that in the injectable form; states had ordered 8 million doses; and nearly 6 million doses had been shipped -- including 836,900 doses to California.
Mexico was facing similar shortages of the H1N1 vaccine. Officials had promised 30 million doses, but now say they don't expect the first batch of 5 million to 8 million doses until late December. The delay was attributed to the huge demand for vaccines around the world.
Despite those delays, reaction to the H1N1 pandemic in Mexico has been more muted than it was in the spring, when the country was the first to be hit hard by the outbreak.
Nearly 20,000 new cases of swine flu infection have been confirmed in that country since early September, with at least 61 fatalities, according to health authorities there. That contrasts with the nearly 42,000 cases and 260 deaths reported since the outbreak began in the spring -- though authorities cautioned that the winter flu season has just begun.
