Flu shot season starts early this year

Last year's swine flu frenzy is long over, but a massive government and commercial push to vaccinate continues.

In the last few weeks, shoppers visiting retail pharmacies and grocery stores have been barraged with no-time-like-the-present seasonal flu vaccine offers aimed at everyone 6 months and older.

It used to be that flu shots weren't available before Oct. 1. But drug makers, who last year struggled to supply enough of the special-order swine flu, or H1N1, vaccine, produced this year's seasonal vaccine far earlier. More than 150 million doses of a single vaccine that fights the H1N1 flu and two other strains are expected to be made this year.

Seasonal vaccines take about two weeks after they're administered to reach peak effectiveness, said William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University School of medicine professor and infectious disease specialist. Also, a single dose now should protect a person through late May, long after the traditional peak of flu season.

"It's not too early to get vaccine," he said.

The early availability is in part a result of heightened awareness about vaccination following the 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 virus. But good old-fashioned capitalism also is motivating retailers, who are accustomed to slow retail sales in August and September.

Most pharmacies offer the flu shot or spray mist for about $30 a dose, but those stores are probably counting on customers who come in for the vaccine to add a few items to their carts while they're waiting, said Tom Charland, CEO of Minnesota based retail consultancy Merchant Medicine.

How long will that wait be? Hard to say. The 7,000 CVS pharmacies nationwide trained all their pharmacists to administer vaccines, so customers can avoid making an appointment. Publix Super Markets also trained all their pharmacists to help with walk-up requests.

"We're making it so much more accessible than in the past," Tampa CVS pharmacist Patti Allen said. "It's just a lot easier than waiting hours for a shot."

Officials at the Hillsborough County Health Department see the commercial availability of the flu vaccine as a positive. Last year, the department administered nearly 52,000 doses of swine flu vaccine, and another 13,000 doses of seasonal flu vaccine, spokesman Steve Huard said. The year before, the public health agency administered about 3,500 flu shots total.

"We don't want to be in competition with the CVS and Walgreens out there," he said.

Previously, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the annual flu death estimate at about 36,000, but they found it to be a misleading gauge of a highly unpredictable illness.

Instead, government scientists say the deaths could vary from 3,000 to 49,000 for the season, which lasts through May 2011.

Regardless, the highly contagious illness can be serious, especially for young children and the elderly, said John Langley a pediatrician and chief quality officer for vaccine distributor Maxim Healthcare.

"We think of influenza giving you muscle aches and upper respiratory problems ... but there are many other complications," Langley said. "This is not just a feel bad illness. It has the potential of serious, devastating complications."