KDHE expecting flu vaccine

High-demand doses to arrive this week in Kansas

? Local health departments in Kansas will receive between 900 and 1,000 new doses of the flu vaccine for adults this week, the Department of Health and Environment announced Monday.

The agency said the vaccine would come from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though the shipments are not likely to be enough to meet demand. Officials did not say how the vaccine will be distributed, other than it will go to areas of the state where the need is high.

KDHE hopes to receive more doses of vaccine for children in January.

Officials at the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department said Monday their latest shipment of the flu vaccine was almost gone.

When the health department closed at 8 p.m. Monday it had fewer than 10 adult doses left, officials said. They did not know when they might receive more of the vaccine, which is in short supply throughout the country because of high demand.

Douglas County will continue to give priority to those considered at high risk of getting the flu. Those people are children between 6 and 23 months old, adults 65 years old and older, women pregnant for more than three months and adults with chronic health problems, such as asthma.

Last week, KDHE declared flu widespread in Kansas, something that hasn’t happened at least since the 1999-2000 season.

Since this year’s season began in September, four people have died from the flu, with an additional 123 dying of pneumonia. For 334 more deaths, flu or pneumonia was a contributing factor, KDHE said.

For the entire 2002-03 flu season, which ended in May, five people died from the flu and 481 from pneumonia, with either a contributing cause in an additional 1,143 deaths.

The total of such deaths during the last season — 1,629 — is typical, KDHE officials said last week.

The total for such deaths so far this season is 461.