Local pharmacies report no shortage of flu shots
LOREN BENOIT/Press file Registered nurse Lisa Hylsky gives Katherine Hoyer her flu shot in 2018 at Panhandle Health.
Spotty inventory has led some local residents to wonder if North Idaho was running low on this year’s flu vaccine.
While supplies vary by pharmacy, there is no shortage of the vaccine, according to local health care providers.
“Those fears are unfounded,” Katherine Hoyer of Panhandle Health District said. “I haven’t heard of any shortage or any issue. To the best of my knowledge, pharmacies, clinics and hospitals are fully stocked.”
Kim Anderson, communications and marketing director for Kootenai Health, backed up Hoyer’s statement, saying she has not heard reports of any shortage from pharmacies. The Press contacted several other pharmacies in the county. None reported any kind of shortage.
“We had 280 doses delivered last week; we went through about half of those,” Medicine Man pharmacist Chax Peterson said from his shop in Hayden. “And we have about 270 coming next week.”
The doses Peterson’s pharmacy receives — and all medical outlets receive — is the quadrivalent dose of the flu vaccination, a broad-spectrum vaccine that covers the most common strands of influenza. As flu season continues into January and February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta usually pinpoints which strain will prove most virulent.
“Now is really the best time to get your flu shot,” Peterson said. “It not only protects yourself but protects the family and friends you’re around. It helps the whole community. It means less missed days at school and work. It means less days being miserable.”
The Coeur d’Alene Press received a call from a resident saying she had heard of a local shortage. A pair of online posts claimed a local pharmacy turned a patient away. The Press has since confirmed that one pharmacist in Coeur d’Alene — who spoke on the condition of anonymity — said he turned away a patient because he temporarily ran out of the high-dose vaccine intended for older patients. He said his inventory would be replenished before Monday morning.
Prices for flu shots vary from $30 to $20 to free, depending on the location.