ElderWeb

The Surgeon General has issued a flu vaccine alert. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been warning of an expected shortage of flu vaccine this winter, but the Surgeon General reports that there will be no shortage, but there is a delay in the availability of sufficient quantities of flu vaccine to vaccinate everyone before December, as has been the case in the past. Because of this, the Surgeon General has asked Americans who are not considered high priority or high risk to wait for their flu shots until after the highest priority populations have been taken care of.

The highest priority is being given to the elderly, pregnant women, and health care workers. Everyone else is being asked to defer their shots until December, when the supply is expected to expand. The Surgeon General also urged seniors not to use this shortage as an excuse to delay getting their shots, since the flu vaccine has been demonstrated to be very effective in reducing deaths from influenza in the older population.