Las Vegas NowMany Still Waiting for H1N1 Vaccine

Many Still Waiting for H1N1 Vaccine

The Clark County Coroner has confirmed the Las Vegas valley's first H1N1 child death. A 6-year-old boy died from respiratory failure due to H1N1. He suffered from sickle cell anemia.

Many parents have gone to the Southern Nevada Health District or their doctor's office in hopes of getting the vaccine, but some are still being turned away.

The CDC has come up with priority groups for the vaccine, but the SNHD says due to a limited supply, they've had to break up those priority groups even more. Getting the vaccine at your doctor's office isn't easy either.

Joy Devries has stood in line at the health district three different times hoping to get her son the vaccine. “This is the only place I can get it for him. Even my own pediatrician doesn't have it,” she said.

She's not the only one who's frustrated. People say they were turned away even after initially being told they were eligible. SNHD's Dr. Lawrence Sands says unfortunately, sometimes miscommunication is a factor. “It's possible that people are looking at different websites and are getting different information on what the CDC recommends as far as priority groups, but that is much different than any particular health department may be providing vaccine for at a given time due to the amount of vaccine that they have,” he said.

Dr. Sands says people between 18 and 64 with chronic medical conditions like HIV or asthma are still not eligible. Allergy and asthma specialist Dr. Jim Christensen says private practice doctors are also having trouble getting the vaccine. “I'm a high immunizer anyway. I do believe in annual flu shots anyways and pretty much most of my patients get their flu shot here. It's important for patients to sort of have a medical home where they can get their routine health care,” he said.

He says he's only received one shipment of the vaccine, which is not enough to vaccinate everyone. “I think that there needs to be more reliance on the local health authorities because medicine is local, politics are local and probably flu vaccine needs to be local,” he said.

For now, there's no other choice but to wait and hope more vaccine makes its way to Nevada.

The state health division and federal government are responsible for distributing the vaccines to local doctors, not the SNHD.