Vaccine for meningitis proves hard to locate

The vaccine is recommended for students living in dorms.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- As move-in day for freshmen approached, Linda Echols took stock of supplies at the Swarthmore College student health center and thought she had plenty of the latest meningitis vaccine for when students started piling into the dormitories.
But when the date got closer, she looked more carefully and saw that it had expired. She frantically started calling doctor's offices and hospitals to try to get some in time for when freshman start arriving on Tuesday but with no luck.
"My problem was I thought I had it, but it expired this summer," Echols said. "It's like the flu shot -- they create a demand that they can't meet."
Demand for the vaccine, which prevents a form of bacterial meningitis and is recommended for students living in dorms, is especially high this year. With its manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, struggling to keep up with the need, some students and colleges have found the vaccine, called Menactra, harder to find.
In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that more than 8 million U.S. children get vaccinated.
State laws
Several states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Louisiana, have enacted laws in recent years requiring the vaccine for college students. In Pennsylvania, college students living in dorms must either be vaccinated or sign a waiver saying that they chose not to get it and understand the risks.
"Everybody knew, because of the way people get vaccines, that there could be a gap in the supply and demand in this back-to-school time frame," said Donna Cary, a spokeswoman for Sanofi Pasteur, which has a manufacturing plant in Swiftwater.
The company plans to manufacture 6 million doses of the vaccine this year and 7 million next year. "The problem is ... we can't ship it all in August," Cary said.
Menactra, a long-term vaccine approved in January 2005, is particularly targeted to college students because close contact is one of the biggest risk factors. The disease, which leads to about 300 deaths a year, also can cause mental disabilities, hearing loss and paralysis.
Alice Gray, director of the immunization program at the state Health Department, said more people are finding out about the vaccine this year, leading to spot shortages nationwide.
"It took off very quickly and a lot more quickly than Sanofi thought it would, I believe," Gray said. "Their manufacturing didn't quite keep up."
Nevertheless, many schools say that they are able to keep up with the demand and state officials believe there will be enough supplies.
Pennsylvania advises freshmen to try to get the vaccine from their local doctor or hospital, Gray said. If that fails, however, the department said people can call a state hot line at 1-877-PAHEALTH. If necessary, the state believes it has enough doses of the vaccine available for those who need it.
At Shippensburg University, the health center ran out of the vaccine but eventually got more from a clinic, said Kenn Marshall, a spokesman State System of Higher Education, which runs 14 universities in Pennsylvania.
"They were still able to immunize everyone that needed it," Marshall said.
Likewise, officials at Penn State said they had plenty of doses available for students.
At Swarthmore, Echols is making do until her vaccine supply arrives Sept. 25. She has either been offering an older version of the vaccine or having students sign a waiver with the condition that she will track them down when the new vaccine arrives.
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