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Vaccines in short supply

NBC News
October 21, 2009 - 5:02pm

Many people are having a tough time finding flu vaccine.

Schools, clinics and other places are running out, or still waiting on shipments.

In Rockville, Maryland, people started lining up just after midnight Wednesday for swine flu vaccine.

By morning 1,400 doses were gone with hundreds still waiting.

Federal officials tell Congress there's a backup in the pipeline.

They insist it's a delay, not a shortage.

13 million doses of H1N1 vaccine are ready now, but officials admit by month's end they'll still be 25 percent short of what was expected.

Outbreaks have shut down a few schools, but not nearly as many as last spring.

Still, colleges are seeing a surge.

The American College Health Association reports over 7,000 new cases last week, up nine percent from the week before.

Bates College in Maine went from six to 265 cases in under two weeks.

New data from Quest Diagnostics, sampling 15 times more patients than the Centers For Disease Control, shows swine flu is spreading from kids to more adults and seniors.

For people who get severe flu, the FDA is speeding up testing and approval for antiviral medicines.

Officials say those drugs, when given early, can save lives.


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