LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas received far more swine flu vaccine than it used and much of it will have to be returned to the Centers for Disease Control to be disposed of, health officials said.
Dr. James Phillips, branch chief of infectious disease for the Arkansas Department of Health, estimated the state hasn't used about 500,000 of its nearly 1.3 million allotment of H1N1 vaccines.
It's too early to know the figure for certain because many private providers have not reported back their numbers, but Phillips said the half-million number is probably close to reality.
He said the uptake of the vaccine was not as good as officials hoped for, but that it's positive in that it shows the virus was not as bad as experts initially feared it might be.
"No one knew the extent or the seriousness of this new virus," Phillips said. "And by the time the vaccine was available, the general public had a good idea that although it was fairly extensive, the severity of the influenza wasn't as severe as we had dreaded. That's good news. But it's bad news as far as having a lot of vaccine."
Arkansas received 1,281,900 doses of H1N1 vaccine and the health department officially shows 343,292 vaccines administered. The latter number will swell, however, as the private providers send in their totals later this year, Phillips said.
Some of the H1N1 has already expired while some of it is waiting in storage in case it's needed before it must be sent back. Flu cases are declining across the country in the summer months, but the CDC reports sporadic H1N1 activity may continue.
The CDC determined the number of vaccines to be sent to each state and the federal government paid for it, so the cost of the extra vaccinations didn't come out of state coffers.
Looking back, Phillips said he has no concerns about the CDC's process given what was at stake.
"One had to make a calculated guess on the worst case scenario," he said. "It's much better to discard some ununsed vaccines than to run short of vaccination while there's still a need."
Swine flu first surfaced in Mexico in April 2009 and spread through the U.S. in subsequent months, spurring long lines at doctor's offices and community clinics offering the vaccine.
In Arkansas, there were 37 confirmed H1N1 deaths and 16 other deaths possibly tied to it.