The supply of A/H1N1 flu vaccines has reached 85 million doses in the United States, a high-ranking health official pronounced on Thursday.
"We added more than 12 million additional doses available in the past week. That brings us to 85 million doses of H1N1 influenza vaccines available," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said during a press conference, Xinhua reported.
In the past two months, limited supply of vaccines caused the CDC to advise state and local health officials to reserve doses for targeted groups, which include pregnant women, children and young adults, health-care workers and people with asthma and certain other health problems.
"Many states have increased the eligibility, having met the demand in the five priority groups, to the general population and that's consistent with the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices," Frieden said.
The states of Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Oklahoma and Texas have started offering swine flu vaccines to all applying residents.
"We've seen an increasing number of states do this," he said. "Sometimes in individual communities or counties within states, sometimes in entire states.
"The more people who are vaccinated, the more people who will be protected from the influenza, the fewer cases we'll have in the future, the less likely we will be to have a third wave or more cases in the weeks and months to come," he added.
U.S. A/H1N1 vaccine supply reaches 85 million doses
