Health officials mum on vaccine numbers

Health officials testifying before Congress on Wednesday said they were reluctant to predict when a sufficient number of vaccine doses would be available for states to treat cases of H1N1, because of earlier miscalculated predictions.

Original projections predicted having 160 million doses available by the end of October. Those estimates were later dropped drastically to 40 million after it became clear that the vaccine manufacturers had overestimated.

Still, only 32.3 million doses had been made available as of Wednesday’s testimony from officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to members of the Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

“We have already been burned quite frankly by [previous predictions],” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of CDC, who declined to give subcommittee members, including Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and ranking Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt (Kan.), and further estimations.

While some states have reported having access to enough vaccine to meet the demand of residents, other states have reported vaccine shortages in the face of high demand.

“We have been working extremely hard with each of the manufacturers to make sure that all of the stumbling blocks that we have any control of and that they have any control of, are really out of the way,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for the HHS’s preparedness and response division.

“[The] flu’s really unpredictable and I think we’re pretty hesitant about projecting forward more than week to week largely because anything could happen.”

---