Rochester, N.Y. - As the H1N1 swine flu sweeps through the region, the shortage of vaccine becomes more obvious.
"It is frustrating because you have a customer demand right now and the public is asking for the vaccine,” Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks said. “And we just don't have the vaccine to reasonably distribute it to the community at this point."
Monroe County has received just 9,000 doses. The first 1,000 went to healthcare workers. The next 8,000 went to ob-gyn's, pediatricians, and others servicing high-risk populations.
Brooks said she needs about 20,000 doses to begin holding public clinics. "We are waiting for the state to send us the rest of what we need," she said. -- There’s the rub: as reports of dozens of public clinics in New York City spread, upstate leaders are wondering if downstate is getting the lion's share of the limited supply.
"From what I see we are getting short-changed, and we need to get that vaccine in Western New York,” Brooks said.
A state health department spokeswoman said supply of the vaccine is being distributed on a per-capita basis, and she wanted to assure us there's no upstate-downstate bias in the distribution process. That being said, the state looks to receive 8-million doses next week, to add to the supply.
Brooks saids she hopes to announce public clinics by the end of the month, but if she doesn't see enough vaccine soon, she'll lobby Albany or D.C.
