Less than half of the swine-flu vaccine expected to be shipped to doctors, hospitals and clinics in the U.S. this month has been shipped so far. The disease now is widespread in 46 states and the U.S. death toll has passed 1,000. The delays are occurring around the globe, officials said, and are due to a series of manufacturing difficulties, as vaccine makers scramble to fill vast orders using an old technology that requires growing virus in chicken eggs. It takes about six to nine months to produce vaccine once a flu strain has been identified. A total of 11.3 million doses of vaccine had been shipped to U.S. doctors, hospitals, and clinics as of Wednesday, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, out of a total of 14.1 million doses that manufacturers had shipped to warehouses by that time. By Friday, 16.1 million doses of vaccine for what is also called H1N1 flu had been shipped to warehouses, the CDC said. The total is far below the government"s most recent estimate that by the end of this month, about 28 million to 30 million doses would be ready. "We are nowhere near where we thought we"d be by now," CDC Director Thomas Frieden said. "We share the frustration of people who have waited in line or called a number or checked a Web site and haven"t been able to find a place to get vaccinated." He declined to provide specific projections for delivery of more doses but said he expected the supply to be "much more widespread" within the next several weeks. "We have confidence that ultimately there will be enough vaccine for everybody who wants to be vaccinated to get vaccinated," he said. The U.S. government has invested more than $2 billion to develop newer, faster methods of vaccine production, but these aren"t yet ready for response to a pandemic. The pandemic is "testing the global influenza manufacturing system," said Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office. The H1N1 flu has infected millions of people in the U.S., the CDC said. While it makes most people only mildly ill, it also has caused severe disease and deaths, including in children and otherwise-healthy young people. --SPA
