State works with MedImmune to distribute FluMist

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Dec 16, 2003 by Patrice Dickens

Faced with a nationwide flu epidemic and a shortage of the traditional injectable flu vaccine, Maryland officials and health insurers are left with little alternatives but to resort to FluMist, an expensive nasal-spray flu vaccine to protect high-risk individuals such as the elderly.

The office of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said yesterday the state made an agreement with FluMist's maker, Gaithersburg-based MedImmune Inc., to buy 100,000 doses of the needle-free vaccine.

Separately, Reuters reported the U.S. government has contracted to buy 3 million doses of FluMist, and will make it available to any states that want to buy it, as well as 375,000 doses of influenza vaccine from Chiron, one of two makers of the traditional injectable flu vaccine. The vaccine was made in Britain but is fully licensed for use in the United States, a Health and Human Services Department spokesman told the news agency.

Last week Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the government was seeking to buy 500,000 doses of British vaccine from the company.

Health insurers like CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield and Kaiser Permanente of the Mid-Atlantic States are also offering FluMist to their members.

CareFirst, for example, has issued a reimbursement increase on FluMist to its members.Under a policy that took effect Dec. 10 and will stay in effect until the flu season is over or the vaccine shortage ends, CareFirst reimbursement for FluMist is now $47, the company said in a news release. Originally, medically appropriate FluMist treatment was reimbursed at the same level as flu shots, about $10, the news release said.

FluMist has a price tag of about $80. The governor's office and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene are working with MedImmune on a cost-effective agreement with the state, the release said.

The shipment of FluMist is expected to arrive and be distributed within the next two weeks, the release said. Also expected are 1,690 injectable doses of vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 810 pediatric doses for children less than 35 months old.

For more information, visit the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Web site at www.dhmh.state.md.us