Although the national shortage of influenza vaccine continues, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently released several million extra doses for sale to health providers, including the Davison Health Center
The Health Center has already begun purchasing additional doses to provide for interested students, faculty, and staff. Although the Center initially planned to wait until this Friday to place the first order, they had an unexpectedly high amount of student and faculty demand.
“We [vaccinated] about 30 people Wednesday,” said Joyce Walter, Director of the Davison Health Center.
“We had so many interested that we just started ordering vaccine as soon as the first people started calling.”
Nationally, about 3.5 million doses of influenza vaccine remain available for the current flu season, according to CDC estimates.
Federal officials continue to promote vaccination during the current flu season, which started off slowly but appears to be accelerating, according to CDC director Julie L. Gerberding
“There is an increase in widespread flu activity across our nation week by week,” Gerberding said during a House Committee hearing on Government Reform last week. “We do not yet know whether the season has peaked.”
The Health Center currently orders from Aventis Pasteur, which is the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical company, ranking number one in Europe. Students still only have to pay $18 even though the price-per-dose for the clinic has risen.
“We kept the cost in line with the large flu clinic price that was planned in the fall, which is actually two dollars cheaper than last year,” Walter said. “We didn’t want to change it regardless of the price now. It was more expensive this semester because we’re using the visiting nurse clinic to buy vaccines, and we aren’t buying in bulk.”
The vaccine is for the 2004/05 season, which prevents against the three influenza strains identified by the World Health Organization in early 2004. A new strain of the virus recently discovered in California, A/California/7/2004-(H3N2), is not in this season’s vaccine, but the World Health Organization announced on Sunday that it will be included in the composition of the influenza vaccine for the 2005/2006 season.
By Laura Brown
Assistant News Editor
Although the national shortage of influenza vaccine continues, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently released several million extra doses for sale to health providers, including the Davison Health Center
The Health Center has already begun purchasing additional doses to provide for interested students, faculty, and staff. Although the Center initially planned to wait until this Friday to place the first order, they had an unexpectedly high amount of student and faculty demand.
“We [vaccinated] about 30 people Wednesday,” said Joyce Walter, Director of the Davison Health Center.
“We had so many interested that we just started ordering vaccine as soon as the first people started calling.”
Nationally, about 3.5 million doses of influenza vaccine remain available for the current flu season, according to CDC estimates.
Federal officials continue to promote vaccination during the current flu season, which started off slowly but appears to be accelerating, according to CDC director Julie L. Gerberding
“There is an increase in widespread flu activity across our nation week by week,” Gerberding said during a House Committee hearing on Government Reform last week. “We do not yet know whether the season has peaked.”
The Health Center currently orders from Aventis Pasteur, which is the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical company, ranking number one in Europe. Students still only have to pay $18 even though the price-per-dose for the clinic has risen.
“We kept the cost in line with the large flu clinic price that was planned in the fall, which is actually two dollars cheaper than last year,” Walter said. “We didn’t want to change it regardless of the price now. It was more expensive this semester because we’re using the visiting nurse clinic to buy vaccines, and we aren’t buying in bulk.”
The vaccine is for the 2004/05 season, which prevents against the three influenza strains identified by the World Health Organization in early 2004. A new strain of the virus recently discovered in California, A/California/7/2004-(H3N2), is not in this season’s vaccine, but the World Health Organization announced on Sunday that it will be included in the composition of the influenza vaccine for the 2005/2006 season.
According to the Health Center staff, students who suspect they might have the flu should first call the Center. Anyone that calls in sick speaks to a nurse, who can then walk through symptoms and signs with the student to determine whether or not the student should physically come to the facility.
“The flu is definitely around in Connecticut,” Walter said. “This is a smaller flu clinic, but we wanted to try to [vaccinate] as many people still interested as possible, since we’re still on that cusp of [knowing] whether or not it’s hit full-blown capacity this season.”
Students still interested in obtaining a flu vaccine shot should contact the Davison office as soon as possible at 685-2470. Cost of immunization will be $18, which can be billed to student accounts.
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