MISSION VIEJO : Seniors Wait for a Shot at Flu Vaccine

The sun had barely crept over the horizon when Al Kuechler joined a handful of seniors waiting for a Mission Viejo flu clinic to open Friday morning.

But by 9 a.m., the scene outside the clinic resembled a rock concert ticket window. Fearful that free influenza vaccine would run out, hundreds of seniors queued up in a line that curled around the Mission Viejo Community and Senior Center.

“How’d you like to be 81 years old and standing in that line for hours?” Kuechler grumbled.

Long lines were reported at several other flu clinics in the county Friday, as word that the free vaccine supplies were running out, combined with reports of a severe flu season, threw a scare into senior citizens.

Through Thursday, nine of 27 clinics in the county that distributed vaccine through a county immunization program ran short of inoculation supplies, county officials said. Some distribution centers have run out of vaccine as early as 11 a.m., said seniors who were turned away at other clinics.

When the Urgent Care Center in Lake Forest distributed its supply of 1,000 doses by 1:30 p.m. earlier this week, “the place was in bedlam over there,” said Claudia Kielb, 75, as she waited outside the Mission Viejo clinic Friday. “It was really frustrating, and I was upset. That’s why I got here early.”

The clinics are particularly necessary for the elderly, health officials said.

“Influenza can be devastating to seniors,” said Dr. Gerald Wagner, director of the county immunization program. “It can severely compromise existing health problems in seniors, such as high blood pressure, emphysema and bronchitis.”

Although a younger person can bounce back from a bout with flu in a few days, with the elderly “it’s not uncommon to have the illness persist for one to three weeks,” Wagner said.

Because different flu strains can appear without warning, Wagner recommends that senior citizens and those with chronic illnesses receive shots every year.

The flu season lasts from January through the spring, said Dr. Hildy Meyers, county director of communicable disease control. Studies show that during flu season, 10% to 30% of the general populace catches the disease, while more than 50% of those in nursery homes are infected, Meyers said.

The fear of dying from a flu-aggravated condition was on the minds of some of those who stood patiently outside the Mission Viejo clinic, reading newspapers and working crossword puzzles.

“Two years ago, the flu laid me up for a month,” said Arthur Ralston, 73, who visited the clinic Friday. “At one point I thought, ‘This is it.’ Believe me, I’ve never missed a flu shot since.”

County officials have moved quickly to meet demand, increasing the normal quotas at several clinics Friday. But they say the logistics of distributing 57,000 doses to about 90 clinics in the county can be troublesome.

“It happens every year,” said Mary Wright, the county immunization project coordinator. “When you have this many locations, sometimes you run out. It’s hard to predict.”

The county received 67,000 doses of influenza vaccine from the state Department of Health Services this year, a 10% increase over last year, Wright said. About 10,000 of the vaccinations are distributed to nursing homes.

“There’s more demand for (flu immunizations) than the state could ever provide,” she said. “We never go at this with the attitude that we can serve everybody. We just try to get to everyone we can.”

Orange County is not the only place in Southern California feeling the crunch. The shortage of free flu vaccine is so great in Los Angeles County that state health administrators have asked Orange County officials to send up about 2,000 doses.

Part of the distribution problem stems from lack of communication, Wright said. Although she said the county tells clinics to let their clients know that supplies may run short, some fail to pass the word along.

County immunization workers will make emergency runs with extra vaccine during the week, but few request the service, she said.

Wright, who has run the county program since 1976, said in the future she may issue rain checks to seniors who are in line when told that vaccinations are gone. The rain checks would give them priority at another clinic.

County residents who are older than 55 and have been turned away at a free flu clinic may call the county immunization program at (714) 834-8560 to learn the location of other free immunization programs, Wright said.

But rain checks come too late to help Art Goliek, 70, and his wife, Edith, who fidgeted at the end of the line outside the Mission Viejo clinic.

“I’m getting real tired of this,” he said. “I waited in enough lines in the Army.”