Vaccine shortages plague Cape County, nation

The Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center ran out of chickenpox vaccine in February, just the latest in a series of vaccine shortages that has plagued the clinic and health providers nationwide and put children and adults at risk.

The health clinic received 100 doses of the chickenpox vaccine within the past two weeks. That supply could last a couple of months, but there's no assurance there won't be future shortages.

The health center had to delay giving flu shots last year because it didn't receive a supply of flu vaccine until mid-December. Since last summer, the center has had only an emergency supply of tetanus/diphtheria vaccine because of a nationwide shortage.

Charlotte Craig, director of the county health center, said the vaccine shortages are a problem statewide. Schoolchildren in Missouri are required to get the tetanus/diphtheria booster shot when they are 14 or 15 years old. But thousands of schoolchildren haven't been immunized because of the shortage, Craig said.

State health officials hope such vaccines can be restocked before year's end.

Wrote to lawmakers

Vaccine shortages, state and county health officials say, could lead to outbreaks of serious and even deadly diseases.

After her clinic ran out of chickenpox virus on Feb. 12, Craig voiced her concerns in a letter to U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson and U.S. Sens. Kit Bond and Jean Carnahan.

"Something must be done to solve this problem or I am fearful that diseases long ago conquered will resurface and threaten the communities of our nation," she wrote.

A spokesperson at Emerson's office said the representative is looking into the matter and has communicated with Bond's office. Craig said she hasn't received a response from any of the three lawmakers.

She said the shortages began three years ago with the flu vaccine and have since spread to other vaccines.

Now there's worry that there could be shortages of several childhood vaccines, including one that is designed to prevent whooping cough. "There is currently a large outbreak of this in Arkansas (some 600 cases). This disease at one time was a killer of infants," Craig wrote to federal lawmakers last month.

"All of a sudden you have a big hole in the wall of protection," she said.

Few manufacturers

Vic Tomlinson, who supervises vaccines for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said his agency shipped out more than 1 million doses of vaccines last year.

Tomlinson said childhood vaccines are paid for by the federal government.

But there are few manufacturers of vaccines. That and tighter federal standards have led to shortages, he said. There's only one company that manufacturers the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella.

The number of vaccine manufacturers has dropped from 37 in the mid-1960s to only four major companies today, and only two of those have headquarters in the United States.

Some experts say slim profit margins are to blame. The government pays as little as 38 percent of market price for some vaccines.

In the face of shortages, the federal Centers for Disease Control doesn't want health care providers to keep more than a 30-day supply of any vaccine in order to more evenly spread the supply of vaccines.

"We have been cutting orders and trying to manage it," Tomlinson said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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