Kansas will get its first shipment of H1N1 flu vaccine in the coming days but the shipment will be small ? about 16,000 doses ? and be reserved for those in high risk groups, state health officials said.
The first doses will be in the form of live-attenuated nasal spray and the first Kansans should be vaccinated by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, Jason Eberhart-Phillips, the state’s health director, said.
Cowley County’s first allotment ? and the allotment for every county ? will be determined according to the percentage of people living in the county who are ages 0 to 24 years. The City-Cowley County Health Dept. will determine how the vaccine is distributed.
The exact number each county gets will be determined in the next few days. The state should receive some inactive doses of the vaccine ? which is administered through a shot ? within the next couple weeks.
Eberhart-Phillips acknowledged the first shipment of the vaccine would be very small and represent only about half of one percent of what the state expects to need. But new orders can be made weekly and state officials want to vaccinate as many people as possible over the next several months.
Those in high-priority groups include, pregnant women, children who live with or care for children under six months of age, healthcare and emergency workers and anyone six months to 24 years old.
Eberhart-Phillips said questions about the vaccine’s safety are expected because it his new. He said the new vaccine was made in a fashion very similar to how seasonal flu vaccine is produced and added that the seasonal vaccine is very safe.
