Beltrami County Public Health is offering flu shots

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Oct. 16, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

Flu shot clinics nationwide have been cancelled or delayed because shipments of flu vaccines have been late arriving at clinics and other agencies.

Beltrami County Public Health rescheduled nine flu shot clinics this month before receiving its vaccine shipment late this week. They held their first clinics Thursday and Friday and will hold clinics almost nonstop throughout October.

Lynn Foss, the assistant director of family health for Beltrami County Public Health, said there are two reasons for this year's flu vaccine arriving late. First, there is such a short period in which manufacturers have to produce the material. And second, the federal Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the country's pharmaceuticals supply, changed its way of approving the vaccine this year.

This year, the FDA is approving the vaccine by lot number, meaning a manufacturer could have the vaccine packaged and ready to go, but until the FDA approves that company's lot numbers, it cannot release its vaccine.

This is what led to not only Beltrami County Public Health, but organizations nationwide, to have canceled their early October flu shot clinics.

Foss said some agencies in Bemidji, such as the Medicine Shop, received shipments of the vaccine that were approved in earlier lot numbers.

But the company that Beltrami County Public Health ordered from, Monarch, hadn't had their lots approved, and so they couldn't make their shipments.

"Monarch has the flu vaccine boxed and read to go, and they were waiting for the FDA to wave their magic wand," Foss said. "We finally gave up, and went somewhere else."

In addition to the new approval system, Foss says the process itself contributes to the vaccine being late.

Each year the FDA approves a new formula for the flu vaccine, and they don't approve it until March. that means the five pharmaceutical companies that produce the flu vaccine have between March and October -- when most people get their flu shot -- to produce 90 million doses. That's up more than 20 million doses since the 1980s.

Foss said that people who received earlier flu shots at other agencies should not panic because it is the same vaccine as what Beltrami County Public health has.

She said there were people in the community who had received earlier flu shots but had heard rumors the FDA was going to switch the makeup of the vaccine. Foss said this is untrue; all of the vaccines distributed will be of the 1999-2000 strain.

Beltrami County Public Health plans to vaccinate about 3,000 people at more than 10 flu hot clinics, Foss said. Flu shots cost $8 and people can also get tetanus/diphtheria shots at the clinics for $5.

Although shots can be given at any time during the winter months, public health officials recommend getting one in late October or early November, before the peak flu months of December to March.

Influenza symptoms are similar to those for the common cold, but are more severe. They include fever, sore throat, runny nose, headaches, muscle aches and fatigue.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, influenza kills an average of 20,000 Americans -- most over the age of 65 -- each year.

Foss said those that should get flu shots include: people 65 years old and older; residents of nursing homes; those with chronic medical conditions; those with pulmonary and cardiovascular conditions (including children with asthma), those with diabetes mellitus and those who are immunosuppressed.

(This story contains material from the Associated Press.)