Vaccine Support

Want to control swine flu? Vaccinate children

If supplies are limited, protecting kids will protect adults, researchers say

"LONDON - Targeting children for vaccination may be the best way of using limited supplies of vaccine to control the current H1N1 flu pandemic, British researchers said on Thursday.

Drugmakers are racing to make a vaccine against the new flu strain but if the disease increases significantly in the northern hemisphere autumn, as many experts fear, there are unlikely to be enough shots to vaccinate entire populations.

Researchers from the University of Warwick said that vaccinating children rather than adults would not only help protect a group at greatest risk of exposure to the virus, but would also offer protection to unvaccinated adults."

Read the rest of this story here- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31424271/ns/us_news-msnbc_wire_services/

Now that puts an interesting twist on it.  A parent who is skeptical of vaccines and holds off on the H1N1 vax who then starts seeing people drop right and left from H1N1 and the hordes of people trying to get vaccinated....decides that it is a good idea after all but then, of course, it's too late because we're out of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, parents are scared and angry because we either don't/won't/can't have this vaccine in the office this Fall. This winter might potentially be a total nightmare for us pediatricians - just another reason why anyone who even thinks we advocate vaccination just for $$ has got to be out of their mind!

Anyone even want to hazard a guess at how much an H1N1 vaccine dose will COST a pediatrician to buy and have in stock?  Not to mention whether or not insurers will even cover it...

 

<<Anyone even want to hazard a guess at how much an H1N1 vaccine dose will COST a pediatrician to buy and have in stock?>>

According to ASTHO, probably about $15/dose .. not including needles / syringes (which the fed gov is tossing around the idea of supplying, and then just requiring providers to purchase the vaccine). I haven't been able to find any other estimates, but it's in line with the cost of annual influenza vaccine administration.