CDC: 3.4 million inhalable H1N1 vaccine doses available soon

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Health officials expect more than 3 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine to be available in the first week of October.

"3.4 million doses of vaccines will be available," said Dr. Jay Butler, who heads the 2009 H1N1 Vaccine Task Force at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"All of that vaccine is the inhalable vaccine," he said Friday.

That form of vaccine is marketed in the United States as FluMist and is approved only for healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and 49. Pregnant women are not allowed to get this type of vaccine because it contains a live virus.

Butler added that he thinks there some flu shots may be available in early October as well, but he had a hard number only for the inhalable vaccine. Flu shots contain an "inactivated," or dead, virus.

The 3.4 million doses of vaccine that will be shipped at the beginning of October are the first of 195 million doses the U.S. government has purchased from five vaccine manufacturers, Butler said.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration licensed the vaccine from four of those companies. Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis and CSL Limited all manufacture flu shots, and MedImmune manufactures the inhalable vaccine. GlaxoSmithkline, which also is producing injectable flu vaccine, still needs to have its vaccine approved by the agency.

Health officials report that the new H1N1 flu virus has not changed from what was seen earlier this year, so they are expecting the vaccine to be very effective.

In some parts of the country, the vaccine can't some soon enough. The deputy director of the CDC's Influenza Division, Dr. Daniel Jernigan, said 21 states are now reporting widespread flu activity.

"It's a very strange thing for us to see that amount of influenza at this time of year" rather than much later in the flu season.

Jernigan said there's been only a small an increase in hospitalizations, mainly among young children and adults. But there has been a lot of activity in outpatient settings.

More at link ~ http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/18/swine.flu.vaccine/index.html

As far as i know the inhaled versions contain live virus (at least the regular flu ones do).

So just be careful guys - if you must have one, make sure you know what you're getting.