![A cancelled flu shots sign at Thrifty White Drug in Mandan, N.D., Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2004, lets two unidentified customers know that the vaccine was recalled by the manufacturer. With a shortage of vaccine shutting down flu shot clinics around North Dakota, some are considering a trip to Canada. [AP]](xin_59100120212044591832.jpg) |
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cancelled flu shots sign at Thrifty White Drug in Mandan, N.D., Tuesday,
Oct. 19, 2004, lets two unidentified customers know that the vaccine was
recalled by the manufacturer. With a shortage of vaccine shutting down flu
shot clinics around North Dakota, some are considering a trip to Canada.
[AP] |
"Everybody here is thinking about it," said Holmen,
the senior center's manager. "We hear on the news that we should be patient, but
we don't know what to do."
Word of Canada's vaccine availability is spreading quickly. Eighty Americans
showed up for flu shots Tuesday at Henders Drug in Estevan — located about nine
miles north of the North Dakota border — although the store's newspaper
advertisement hadn't even run yet.
"I suspect there will be a lot more," said Larry Preddy, pharmacist and
co-owner of the store. He charges Americans the same price as Canadians — $15
Canadian or about $12 U.S.
The U.S. vaccine shortage was caused when British regulators shut down
U.S.-bound shipments from Chiron Corp., after some batches of the vaccine were
found to be contaminated with bacteria. The decision cut the U.S. supply of flu
shots almost in half.
Canada does not have a shortage because it doesn't get vaccine from the
British supplier.
Urgent Care Niagara's Fort Erie clinic, just across the border from Buffalo,
said it would vaccinate 100 Americans a day, for around $40 U.S. each, squeezing
them in among Canadian patients who got first priority.
Virginia Matysiak was No. 100. She and her son Kenneth picked up the number
after waiting in line then killed time at the nearby Fort Erie Race Track and
Slots. "We ate lunch and played and came back" — $100 richer, she said.
"So they're paying us to get a flu shot," Kenneth Matysiak said.
Several cars with New York license plates were parked outside the Urgent Care
clinic Tuesday and the waiting room was filled with Americans holding the
coveted numbers. Urgent Care's Niagara Falls clinic also was vaccinating 100
non-Canadians a day.
Officials at the Canadian clinic said vaccine provided by the provincial
government was being given only to Canadian citizens, but that the clinic had
purchased surplus doses for sale to non-Canadians in high-risk categories.
Perry Kendall, British Columbia's chief health officer, said there has been
some interest at a walk-in flu-shot clinic at the Vancouver airport.
Ross Findlater, Saskatchewan's chief health officer, said Americans are
welcome to get flu shots in the province, as long as they do not come in droves.
"A couple hundred or a thousand, overall, from a provincial point of view
wouldn't be a problem," he said.
Saskatchewan will track the number of people coming north through shot
clinics offered by public health offices. Those shots are free to Canadians
considered at high risk from the flu, but Americans would be charged about $16
U.S., Findlater said.
"Most of (the public health units) have some sort of capacity in flu clinics
to immunize healthy people who are willing to pay," he said.
Independent doctors and pharmacies in the province get their vaccine from a
separate pool, and will not be tracked, Findlater said.
Some health officials in Canadian provinces are concerned about the effect a
massive influx of American patients could have. British Columbia's Health
Minister, Colin Hansen, said recently that the drug supply situation was too
much for the provinces to deal with individually and that it should be tackled
by the federal government.
"When we hear both candidates for the presidency of the U.S.A. talk about
allowing Americans easier access to medicines purchased from Canada, there has
to be a federal government response," and not just each province keeping an eye
on the impacts of cross-border shopping, Hansen said.
Also Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration (news
- web
sites) was investigating how unlicensed vaccine ended up being shipped to
Florida. The vaccine was to be given starting Wednesday at clinics in Orange,
Seminole and Osceola counties.
The vaccine came from Shire Pharmaceuticals Group, a British company that
sold its vaccine division in September to a Canadian company, ID Biomedical.
