Safety

Flu vaccine shortage increases ER fears

Emergency Management Alert, October 18, 2004

Emergency room doctors anticipate overwhelming problems with sick and elderly patients this season citing the flu vaccine shortage as a source of the problem, the Times Union reported.

The American College of Emergency Physicians planned to meet this week in San Francisco to determine how emergency rooms could receive extra resources to help flu patients.

"On any given night or day in Atlanta and in major cities across the country, emergency departments are swamped with patients," Dr. Arthur Kellermann, professor and chairman of emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, told the Times Union. "Where will we find the hospital capacity to handle potentially hundreds of thousands of flu victims that will need at least evaluation and possibly hospital care?"

The bacterial contamination of almost 50 percent of this year's flu vaccine is an emergency alone, hospital officials say. Even with flu vaccine rationing, doctors fear that the typical 36,000 flu-related deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations will increase.

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