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U.S. Turning to Canada for Drugs Flu Vaccine
Oct. 19, 2004 Just like many senior citizens, the
U.S. government is turning to Canada for drugs, according to HHC
Secretary Tommy Thompson, who announced today the U.S. is negotiating
with Canada to buy flu vaccine to help solve the shortage in the U.S.
Speaking at a news conference, which included the
heads of most of the government entities involved in the flu vaccine
effort, Thompson assured the senior citizens the need for flu vaccine
can be met. He said officials with Aventis Pasteur, the only company now
supplying the vaccine to the U.S., has been increasing their supplies
and now says they can provide an additional 2.6 million doses in
January.
Thompson says the vaccine from Aventis Pasteur will
total 58 million doses. This, added to two million doses of the nasal
flu preventive, will give Americans 60 million doses of anti-flu
medicine.
Last week, the FDA announced it was seeking other
vaccine suppliers and today said it is in active negotiations with ID
Biomedical, a Canadian supplier, for 1.5 million doses. The Canadian
governments Health Canada is helping with this transaction. The
companys vaccine is licensed in Canada, Mexico and China.
Last year, more than 83 million Americans were
immunized but that still only included six of every ten senior citizens.
The flu killed 36,000 in the U.S. last year 32,000 were 65 or older.
Federal officials
had planned to have 100 million doses of influenza vaccine available to
this season. This hope died quickly on Oct. 5, when the company
scheduled to supply about half of this vaccine, Chiron, had their
plant shutdown abruptly by British health officials.
Sec. Thompson sought to assure Americans in
particular senior citizens and said waiting in long lines to receive
the shots is not necessary. He said there should be a constant supply of
vaccine coming to the market each week and said seniors should be
patient, but persistent.
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
