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Santa Fe – October 13, 2009 – Below is the latest Seasonal and H1N1 information from the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH).

General

The New Mexico Department of Health offices are currently inundated with phone calls and requests for information. They ask that community members to be patient with this process and with public health staff.

H1N1

H1N1 vaccine is being delivered to New Mexico and should be in provider’s offices early next week at the latest. Vaccine is being shipped to health care providers and public health offices in each county. These shipments were allocated on a per capita basis. A few hundred doses or less were allocated to each county in our Region. At this time, NMDOH does not know the exact amount each county or provider will receive.

Santa Fe County will announce its own process for making vaccine available. All providers will follow the same protocols to determine who is eligible to receive vaccine. A list of priority groups is available at www.nmhealth.org/H1N1 and www.flu.gov.

Due to the limited amount of vaccine NMDOH is receiving, they will not be able to serve all priority groups with this first shipment. The specific type of vaccine each provider receives, mist or injectable, will further limit the groups they can vaccinate. They will have enough vaccine to vaccinate all priority groups over the coming weeks.

Seasonal Flu

Seasonal flu vaccine is in limited supply across the State and nationally. In this Region, NMDOH has seen high demand for seasonal flu vaccinations. This high demand has nearly exhausted current vaccine supplies. They expect to use up all of the seasonal flu vaccine in Public Health offices by next week – they will have to reschedule some previously scheduled vaccination clinics and events.