• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Not Enough Meningitis Vaccine to Go Around

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 09:00 CDT

By Anita Manning

Demand for a new meningitis vaccine has created a shortage, and health officials say doctors should give priority to older teens and hold off on giving the shots to pre-teens.

"One thing we know about this vaccine is that demand goes up in the summer in anticipation of back-to-college and back-to-school," says Jeanne Santoli of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency issued recommendations in late May calling on doctors to defer immunizing 11- and 12-year-olds but to continue vaccinating those entering high school or college.

The vaccine, Sanofi Pasteur's Menactra, was licensed last year for ages 11 to 55 and recommended to be given at the pre-teen doctor visit (ages 11 to 12) and to entering high school students (about age 15) and college freshmen living in dorms. Santoli says Sanofi is building a new plant to make larger quantities of the vaccine, but it won't be in operation until 2008.

Each year, up to 2,800 people are infected with the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis, which causes bloodstream infections and meningitis, a brain inflammation. About half are young adults over 15, and the adolescent risk peaks at around 18 or 19, Santoli says. Ten percent to 15% of patients die, and an additional 10% to 20% suffer severe complications including deafness, loss of limbs and brain damage.

"It isn't very common," Santoli says, "but it's a very scary disease."

The shortage is expected to ease in the fall, when demand probably will level off, she says. Doctors who postpone vaccinating 11- and 12-year-olds should keep track of them and call them back for immunization when supplies are available, Santoli says.

But that could be tough to do, says pediatrician Jessica Kahn of Cincinnati Children's Hospital, who specializes in adolescent medicine.

"The issue of vaccine shortages is a big problem," she says, especially at a time when health officials are stressing the importance of adolescent vaccines.

"We get concerned when we raise expectations among parents and say kids need the vaccines, and then not being able to deliver it," she says. If a vaccine isn't available when the patient is in the office, "you won't see those kids until next year," unless they come in for a sports physical or for an illness.

"A lot of kids who are 11 or 12 are so healthy they may not come in again for two or three years," she says. Most offices have no system to track and recall patients, and parents may not remember that a vaccine was missed.

"I do worry about the detrimental public health impact," Kahn says. "There are going to be kids affected by the shortage, for sure. If you're not immunizing 11- and 12-year-olds around the country for a year, some of those kids will get meningococcal disease."

(c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

More News in this Category