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DALLAS - Dallas County will hold its first public vaccination clinic for the H1N1 vaccine next Wednesday, county health department director Zachary Thompson said today.
County officials still have not settled on a location, he said. That announcement will be made tomorrow. The county received an additional shipment of 5,000 doses of vaccine today. If no other shipments arrive, the clinic will have 10,700 doses available.
The Dallas event will follow Tarrant County's first vaccination clinic, scheduled for Friday. That county has 3,110 doses available - but only for pregnant women and children with chronic illnesses.
Dallas County officials intend their doses to be used by people at highest risk who have no medical insurance. They had hoped that the vaccine would be available to the general public at some pharmacies before they opened their clinic. But state health officials say that is unlikely.
"Vaccine won't be widely available, such as to pharmacies, until at least late November," said Carrie Williams, spokesperson for the state health department.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today that the supply was increasing, but that demand was far greater than the doses on hand.
"It is likely that too little vaccine is one thing that is making people more interested in getting vaccinated," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC.
