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Sales of the vaccine Zostavax, which is administered to help prevent the shingles virus, has increased in Crawford County, but officials say it likely isn't due to an actual increase in the number of cases.
The vaccine previously was approved only for people age 60 or older, but the Food and Drug Administration approved it in March for people as young as 50. According to the FDA, shingles, which is a variant of chicken pox that occurs in adults, affects about 200,000 people in the United States age 50 to 59 each year.
That expanded range, said Krista Postai, CEO of the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas, means that more people are eligible to receive the vaccine, likely increasing the demand. A growing but sluggish campaign to promote the vaccine has helped as well.
“People are becoming more aware,” Postai said. “They’re learning more about the vaccine.”
Postai said another factor to the growing demand in Crawford County is a higher number of elderly residents.
“We live in an area with a higher percentage of elderly,” Postai said. “The risk is more likely to increase as their immune system declines.”
Though the demand is going up, multiple factors have deterred many physicians’ offices and clinics from carrying the vaccine, according to a July 11 report by the New York Times.
One of those factors is that the drug’s manufacturer, Merck, has not been able to keep up with demand.
According to the report, intermittent shortages have kept the company from consistently marketing the vaccine and have forestalled public health campaigns that could have built awareness of the need for it.
“It really, really has been frustrating,” said Dr. Rafael Harpaz, an epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the report. “There hasn’t been a single year since the vaccine was licensed in 2006 that there’s been no problem with supply.”
As a result of these obstacles, just 10 percent of adults 60 and older were vaccinated against shingles in 2009, the most recent federal survey reports — far fewer than scientists and public health officials originally had hoped.
Pittsburg pharmacist Brian Lindburg said he has had a backlog of requests for the vaccine.
“The vaccine has been on national backorder,” Lindberg said, adding that he had to place orders in February to receive them in June. “Now that they’re in, we’ve been scheduling appointments every day.”
Sales of the vaccine Zostavax, which is administered to help prevent the shingles virus, has increased in Crawford County, but officials say it likely isn't due to an actual increase in the number of cases.
The vaccine previously was approved only for people age 60 or older, but the Food and Drug Administration approved it in March for people as young as 50. According to the FDA, shingles, which is a variant of chicken pox that occurs in adults, affects about 200,000 people in the United States age 50 to 59 each year.
That expanded range, said Krista Postai, CEO of the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas, means that more people are eligible to receive the vaccine, likely increasing the demand. A growing but sluggish campaign to promote the vaccine has helped as well.
“People are becoming more aware,” Postai said. “They’re learning more about the vaccine.”
Postai said another factor to the growing demand in Crawford County is a higher number of elderly residents.
“We live in an area with a higher percentage of elderly,” Postai said. “The risk is more likely to increase as their immune system declines.”
Though the demand is going up, multiple factors have deterred many physicians’ offices and clinics from carrying the vaccine, according to a July 11 report by the New York Times.
One of those factors is that the drug’s manufacturer, Merck, has not been able to keep up with demand.
According to the report, intermittent shortages have kept the company from consistently marketing the vaccine and have forestalled public health campaigns that could have built awareness of the need for it.
“It really, really has been frustrating,” said Dr. Rafael Harpaz, an epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the report. “There hasn’t been a single year since the vaccine was licensed in 2006 that there’s been no problem with supply.”
As a result of these obstacles, just 10 percent of adults 60 and older were vaccinated against shingles in 2009, the most recent federal survey reports — far fewer than scientists and public health officials originally had hoped.
Pittsburg pharmacist Brian Lindburg said he has had a backlog of requests for the vaccine.
“The vaccine has been on national backorder,” Lindberg said, adding that he had to place orders in February to receive them in June. “Now that they’re in, we’ve been scheduling appointments every day.”
