Only “high-risk” students will be allowed to receive influenza vaccinations at University Health Service because of a nationwide shortage in flu vaccinations, Northwestern administrators said Thursday.
Director of University Health Services Donald Misch said the British government suspended the license of Chiron, one of only two primary flu vaccine manufacturers, leaving the United States only about 58 million of the 100 million vaccinations expected.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, the British government suspended Chiron’s pharmaceutical license for at least three months because of contaminated batches found in its sample.
Evanston Health and Human Services currently has no adult flu vaccinations and a small amount of pediatric ones because it ordered all of its vaccinations from Chiron, said the city’s director of health and human services, Jay Terry.
Evanston Health and Human Services normally vaccinates 2,000 people each year. It takes many months to produce the flu vaccination and it is not possible for more vaccinations to be made quickly, Terry said.
“There’s not a whole lot we can do right now,” Terry said. “We’re trying to find out who does have the vaccine so we can supply it to at-risk groups.”
Northwestern receives its flu vaccinations from rival pharmaceutical company Aventis-Pasteur, and already has received 2,000 of the 4,000 vaccinations it expected. Misch said NU is following CDC recommendations to ration its flu vaccines to those in high-risk categories.
Last month, Misch predicted the U.S. shortage would not affect NU’s vaccine supply, and said his department was reaching out to serve as many students as possible.
Students at NU who fall into the high-risk categories must make an appointment with Health Services to verify their high risk status. At this time Northwestern cannot supply flu shots to faculty and staff, even those who are high risk.
About 2,600 Northwestern students received flu shots last year, Misch said.
Jill Hogan, a Communication senior, said she receives a flu shot every year, but only at her parents’ prodding. As a healthy young person, she said she believes that the sick, young and elderly should have priority.
“Honestly, if I were to get the flu, I’d live, unlike some 87-year-old woman in a hospital,” Hogan said.
But with so many students living in close quarters, many students wonder if the virus now will spread faster.
“We attend a university with so many people from so many different climates,” Weinberg junior Ketica Guter said. “If one person gets the flu, we all get the flu.”
Reach Diana Scholl at [email protected].
