Seasonal flu shots run out of stock quickly

Surprised at how quickly the department ran out of flu shots in only one day, Alice Loper, the director of Student Health Services and a family nurse practitioner, saw a definite change from previous years.

“Last year we ordered 450 to 500 doses and practically had to beg students to take it because they didn’t want to take a shot,” Loper said. “We had no idea what our response would be or we would have ordered more initially. We’ve always had many more faculty and staff taking it than students, but this year that’s been reversed.”

Loper said she knows why the flu shots disappeared so quickly.

“The reason they did was because we’re offering them at no charge to students,” Loper said. “Normally we charge students, faculty and staff.”

The school thought it best to make the flu shots free for students for this flu season.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen when the regular flu season hits if the H1N1, or swine flu, is still around,” Loper said. “We don’t know how that’s going to mix, so we wanted to protect as many people from seasonal flu as we could.”

Sometimes the nurse practitioners of the health center give the flu shots, but the second order of vaccinations this term was administered by nursing students. The students were overseen by faculty members at all times, according to officials.

Jayne Feinberg and Lauren Windham, both junior nursing majors, were two of the students giving flu shots.

Windham gave 11 shots, while Feinberg gave 10.

“I think that was about the average,” Feinberg said. “Some people did more. Some people did less. We were trying to make it even so we all got equal practice.”

Seasonal flu shots are used to fight a certain flu strain that scientists believe will be the most prominent for that season. The flu shots administered do not protect against swine flu.

“The Southern Hemisphere of the world has their flu season before the Northern Hemisphere,” Loper said, “so the scientists try to figure out what the strains were in the Southern Hemisphere and they base the vaccine off that. It’s not a guarantee that it’s going to fight whatever strain we have. It’s sort of a best guess at what the virus may be.”

While Health Services has ordered more doses of the vaccine and is on several waiting lists, it is becoming more difficult to get a hold of the shots.

“It’s getting harder to get the seasonal vaccine because a lot of companies stopped producing it and started working on the H1N1,” Loper said.

There is no telling when the next order of vaccination will be delivered. The second order of doses that were given out Sept. 23 took more than a month to arrive.

“Our first order came quickly because we had it ordered for many months,” Loper said.

The students were supposed to give shots every Wednesday until they ran out, but it only took one day to go through all of the vaccinations.

“We were supposed to be there until 4:30 p.m.,” Feinberg said. “At 2:15 p.m., one of the students was like, ‘we only have nine shots left.’ We waited about 30 minutes for them all to go.”

They are unsure about when they will be able to give flu shots next.

“It just depends on when Health Services gets in the batch of vaccines,” Windham said. “They’ve ordered them and they’re on the way. It’s hard to tell.”

The flu shots are open to all students for free and for faculty and staff for $20. Those with certain allergies should not get the vaccine.

“The major reason someone should not take it is if they’re allergic to eggs, because the vaccine is made in an egg base,” Loper said.

There are possible side effects, but they are often not severe enough to deter most people from getting a shot.

“Some people, their arm gets sore,” Loper said. “They might feel a little bad, but it’s not a live virus and that’s important for people to understand. It can’t really give people the flu. There are people that swear they got the flu from the shot, but probably they’ve already been exposed to the flu. They can have redness at the site or soreness for a day or two.”

Even with the side effects, students are making the most out of the opportunity for free shots.

“I’m really pleased that so many students are taking advantage of this,” Loper said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 2 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry