Fresh Healthy Body

With supplies of the swine flu vaccine likely to remain relatively scarce for at least the next few weeks, the Dallas and Tarrant county health departments were both asking the same question Tuesday about their first vaccination clinics:

How many will come?

Tarrant County goes first, on Friday. Dallas County’s will be Nov. 4. Both counties are firming up staffing and security plans.

Based on the experiences of clinics in other parts of the country, the lines here could be fried-butter-booth long.

“We have to anticipate long lines and that is going to be a slow process,” said Zachary Thompson, director of the Dallas County health department.

How heavy is the demand for the vaccine? The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported this week that a Minnesota clinic had set up a telephone-appointment system for its 17,000 doses and received 120,000 calls in four hours. Nobody knows if anything remotely like that will happen in North Texas.

“My first thought was that this is going to be a big deal,” said Haltom City Police Lt. Steve Irvin. He’s in charge of planning security for Friday’s clinic at the W.G. Thomas Coliseum.

He’s lined up uniformed police officers, firefighters, members of the Texas State Guard, and county sheriff’s deputies – just in case. Unless more vaccine arrives, the Tarrant County clinic will administer 3,100 doses. The clinic is intended to serve only pregnant women and children with chronic diseases.

“If you aren’t in the target groups, we will turn you away,” Tarrant County health department spokesman Marc Flake said.

Tarrant County announced its fifth confirmed H1N1-related death Tuesday: a woman in her 40s. The county health department released no other details. Dallas County announced its 13th confirmed H1N1-related death Tuesday. The 38-year-old man had no underlying illnesses. No other details were released.

Dallas County is scheduled to announce today where it will hold its Nov. 4 clinic. It plans to handle at least 500 vaccinations per hour. Dallas County received an additional 5,000 doses of vaccine Tuesday. If no more arrive, that clinic will have 10,700 doses.

The Dallas County clinic is aimed at those who do not have insurance and are at highest risk of severe disease, including children and pregnant women. Thompson had hoped that at least some vaccine would be available for the general public in pharmacies before Dallas held its first clinic. But that’s unlikely to happen, Texas health officials said.

“Vaccine won’t be widely available, such as to pharmacies, until at least late November,” said Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the state health department.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that the pace of vaccine production was starting to pick up, but was still not close to meeting the demand.

“It is likely that too little vaccine is one thing that is making people more interested in getting vaccinated,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC.

Other than more vaccine being distributed, nothing else has changed about the outbreak, he said. Infections are still widespread through most of the nation. Some places, such as Texas, are showing some declines, but others are showing an increase in reported illnesses. The severity of illness is also unchanged, with most people who catch it suffering a few crummy days but a few others getting very ill.

As of Tuesday, more than 22 million doses of vaccine had been made available nationwide, Frieden said. That’s up about 8 million doses from a week ago, but far short of the 225 million doses that will eventually be manufactured.

Frieden would not predict when the supply would be large enough to go beyond the high-risk groups: Pregnant women, children and young adults, and people with chronic illnesses.

“That’s the focus now,” he said. “While others, I understand, want to get vaccinated, I think all of us can respect that the vaccine should be used first for those who will benefit most, those who are most at risk.”