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LISA GREENEAn emergency order allows hospitals, doctors and pharmacies to sell vaccines directly to one another.
Health officials continued efforts Thursday to redistribute flu shots so that people in high-risk groups will be able to get vaccinated.
Hospitals, doctors and pharmacies can now sell shots directly to one another under an emergency order signed Thursday by Dr. John O. Agwunobi, secretary of the state's Health Department.
The country faces a sudden flu shot shortage because British authorities shut down a plant where nearly half of the U.S. vaccine supply, some 46-million to 48-million doses, was made. The manufacturer, Chiron Corp., has said it can't distribute any shots this year.
As a result, health officials are asking healthy people to forgo shots so that people who are at higher risk of getting severely ill or dying from the flu can get them. Those groups include the elderly, people with chronic health problems and children 6 to 23 months old.
Health officials also are asking shot providers who now have extra shots - for example, if they bought shots intended for the general public - to sell them to hospitals or others trying to get shots to high-risk patients. Before the emergency order, providers had to buy directly from wholesalers.
So far, the state is "generally seeing compliance" with the request to save shots for those most in need, said Dr. Bonita Sorensen, deputy state health officer with the state Health Department.
Along those cooperating is the Publix grocery store chain. A spokeswoman there said Wednesday that the store felt a responsibility to provide a shot to any customer who wanted one. But spokesman Dwaine Stevens said Thursday that the chain now is limiting the shots to high-risk groups.
For the most part, all health officials can do is ask. The shots are made by a private company, and most of them have been sold to other private hospitals, pharmacies and clinics.
Federal officials say they don't have the authority to redistribute the shots themselves and that doing so would take too long anyway. Sorensen said the state doesn't have authority to sanction doctors or pharmacies who refuse to limit shots to high-risk patients.
"We're using our powers of persuasion," she said.
However, Sorensen also warned that the state will take action against price-gouging.
Web sites with information about where flu shots are being offered include www.lungusa.org and www.findaflushot.com