May 19, 2013
Many parents pray their child doesn't catch the flu, especially when there's not enough flu vaccine to go around. To ease the sick season worries, vaccine makers have begun shipping more medicine earlier.
Mikal Caldwell has to take five children to the doctor, and on Tuesday, it was only for a check up. But like many parents, he worries about his children catching the flu. "When one gets the flu or a cold, they all get it. So the ability to get more immunizations would be a big help for me definitely because it's always a little difficult trying to get them all in." said Caldwell.
Lucky for families across America, there are changes in place this year to increase vaccinations for influenza. Doctors say this effort to vaccinate an additional 30 million Americans could make quite an impact during the sick season.
A local family practitioner, Mignon Emenike, M.D. said, "It's indicated for everybody greater than the age of six months, so that's a lot of people, so that's a lot of vaccines we have to have available."
With most medical providers having to pay up front and preorder the vaccine weeks in advance, they'll be glad to know all but one of the five manufacturers have already started shipping a record 143 million doses. Hopefully the step up in pace will help curb this year's flu impact before the next visit to the doctor's office.
In addition to there being more vaccines earlier, for the the first time doses will include all new strains of the influenza virus.
