Clinic runs out of flu shots

MAT-SU — The Mat-Su Public Health Clinic has run out of its first batch of H1N1 flu vaccines just after 4 p.m. today.

The stocks rapidly depleted after the clinic increased the maximum age for children eligible for the swine flu vaccine from 4 to 18 years old, nurse manager Jane Conard said.

“The demand has changed,” Conard said. “We have seen a lot more older kids.”

When the clinic started administering the nasal spray on Tuesday, 91 children were vaccinated. On Friday, the line was around the block.

“I would comfortably say we gave over 200 today,” Conard said.

That’s right on schedule, said Mat-Su Borough Emergency Manager Tom Smayda. The clinic was hoping to go through its first shipment this week, he said. The state is constantly getting new shipments in, but who is going to get how much is too hard to say.

“We just don’t get one great big shipment in. It’s kind of trickling in,” Smayda. “We consolidate the vaccines until we can actually do something with it.”

But he did say everyone who wants a vaccine eventually will be able to get one. Private health care providers are starting to see a few doses, and the first injectable vaccines suitable for adults should show up to the Valley soon, Smayda said.

However, it will still be another month or so until the Mat-Su Borough holds mass vaccination clinics. The borough is prioritizing its priority groups, and private clinics will identify their most vulnerable patients for the first doses.

Conard said she does not know when the clinic will start dispensing vaccines again. The office is closed Monday, but the message on the clinic’s phone line says it is updated every day.

Information changes rapidly, Smayda said, and the quickest source is to call the Mat-Su Public Health office. Officials there will have an information hotline set up soon, and the Frontiersman will print the number when it becomes available.