H1N1 Vaccine Update

In the next week or two, local doctors’ offices should have “robust supplies” of the H1N1 vaccine, Dr. Christopher Lillis told me this morning.

Small numbers of doses are beginning to trickle in to area doctors’ offices,  “and doctors will be reserving those doses for the highest risk groups until larger supplies arrive,” said Lillis, a  Fredericksburg physician and Healthy Living columnist.

High-risk groups include pregnant women, children and people with underlying medical conditions (visit cdc.gov for a full list).

A letter from state health commissioner Karen Remley to the medical community on Tuesday gives more details:

“Despite the vaccine production delays, Virginia has been approved to order enough vaccine to provide initial orders to all private provider medical offices registered with the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) as vaccinators,” the letter says. “Those orders were placed yesterday and vaccine should start to arrive in your offices in the next 3 to 7 days. Although initial quantities are small and are only partial shipments, this should allow all offices to begin to vaccinate those patients in the priority groups designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”

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