Diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and pneumococcal disease vaccines
were among the recommended immunizations in critically short supply by
February 2002.
To deal with the shortage, state and city immunization managers limited
their vaccine orders from manufacturers, sent out partial orders to their
clients and shifted deliveries to high-priority providers like hospitals,
say Shannon Stokley, M.P.H., and colleagues at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in the January issue of the American Journal
of Preventive Medicine.
Nearly 70 percent of national immunization managers suspended tetanus-diphtheria
vaccine requirements for school enrollment and some day care and Head Start
programs eased their vaccine enrollment requirements.
There is “a risk that this strategy may be difficult to reverse
once the vaccine supply returns to normal,” Stokley cautions.
The national vaccine advisory committee also recommended that physicians
and other providers limit or temporarily halt pneumococcal, tetanus-diphtheria
and diphtheria-pertussis vaccinations.
However, only 16 percent of the providers interviewed for the study complied
with the recommendation, and few kept records of which children would need
vaccines after the shortage ended.
Although providers should resume routine schedules for tetanus, diphtheria,
whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox, some children
may never receive missed vaccine doses, Stokley says.
Health care providers who saw more than 20 patients per week and those
working in states where not all vaccines were purchased by the state were
more likely to report problems ordering and receiving vaccines, the researchers
found.
