Vaccination against the H1N1 swine flu is off to a slow start in the United States, but states have ordered more than 2 million doses of mostly nasal spray for the first patients, Reuters cited a top health official as saying today. Every state has ordered a share of the pandemic vaccine, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news briefing. "This week, as of yesterday, about 2.4 million doses were available for ordering," Frieden told reporters in a telephone briefing. He said states had ordered 2.2 million of the doses -- a painstaking process because they must specify which vaccine they want and have a plan in place for delivering it. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration must inspect each lot of vaccine as it is packaged. "Each day as more vaccine is cleared, more vaccine becomes available for ordering," Frieden added. "I think what we are seeing now is the tap beginning to flow. We are seeing a substantial amount of vaccine beginning to get out." The first batches available are AstraZeneca unit MedImmune's nasal spray vaccine, which is approved for people aged 2 to 49 without asthma or other lung conditions. Many states are opting to vaccinate healthcare workers first, who have a high risk both of being infected and of passing infections along to vulnerable patients. The U.S. government has ordered 250 million doses and, given that many Americans skip flu shots every year, the CDC believes this will be enough to fill demand. The CDC and World Health Organization are urging people everywhere to get the vaccine. Mass vaccination campaigns against the swine flu virus are also under way in China and Australia and will be starting soon in parts of Europe, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said on Tuesday. WHO and the CDC both stressed that the pandemic H1N1 vaccine is made the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine and is both safe and effective. "What we have decided to do is make vaccine available as soon as it comes off the production lines," Frieden said. "That means it is becoming available in lots. It is a little bit of a messy process and we do expect it to be a little bit bumpy in the next few weeks." And it will be a strain to keep up with the virus. "As of today, influenza is widespread in most of the United States," Frieden said. "We are seeing it continue to increase in some areas." Nonetheless, he noted, when H1N1 goes through a community, it infects about 5 percent of the people, leaving 95 percent vulnerable to a fresh round. "You don't know what the rest of this long flu season is going to hold. We haven't had a flu season like this in at least 50 years," Frieden said.
