TULSA, Okla. — The Tulsa Health Department says starting Monday, it will be temporarily out of the adult flu vaccine for a couple weeks. It still has the child vaccine.
The health department gives out 10,000 to 14,000 flu vaccines ever year. But if you try to get one next week, you may run into some trouble. A shipping delay has caused a temporary outage of the adult vaccine. They expect to receive it sometime during the week of Nov. 11.
“The health department is anticipating additional shipments of vaccine within the next couple of weeks," said Ellen Niemitalo, clinic services manager at the Tulsa Health Department. "This has just been out of our hands and out of our control. It’s been with the manufacturers that there have been those delays in the shipping.”
This comes just days after the state’s first flu related death in Tulsa County. So far, 53 people in the state have been hospitalized for the flu. Sixteen of those were in Tulsa County. The health department encourages getting your flu shot early.
“From the time that someone is exposed to someone with the flu until that individual would get symptoms is about three days," Niemitalo said. "It takes two weeks for the flu vaccine to become fully effective. So, if you wait until you’ve been exposed it really is too late.”
The health department recommends anyone six months and older get the flu vaccine. And if you are sick, avoid others.
“Just remain home if they don’t feel well and try to avoid contact with people who are sick," said Jessica Rice, epidemiology supervisor at the Tulsa Health Dept. "And just have really good respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene to really minimize the spread.”
The health department said even though they are out of the flu vaccine they still encourage people to get their flu shot at locations such as a clinic or a pharmacy. They will update their website once the adult flu vaccine is re-stocked. You can get to the website here.
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