Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Meningitis Vaccine for 7th and 12th graders on back order.

     The Menveo meningitis vaccine is recommended by the CDC and AAP for prevention of bacterial meningitis. It is required for Ohio schools to be received before starting 7th and 12th grades. We have consistently given to 11 year olds and 16-17 year olds in our office.
     We were recently informed that the vaccine was on back order by the manufacturer. Soon afterwards, we ran out of our supply of the vaccine. As of this morning, we do not have any further doses of the vaccine. Many pre-teens and teens have appointments with us in the weeks before school who will be due for the vaccine. What to do?
     When this happens, we typically are not informed when we will receive further doses of the vaccine. This is true now. We anticipate receiving more vaccine before school starts. Since we ran out of the vaccine, we are keeping track of those who needed the vaccine at a visit but did not receive it. We plan to contact those families when the vaccine arrives. In addition, we will post on Dr. Tim's Hilliard Pediatric page on Facebook when the vaccine is available. When it arrives, those patients will be able to be promptly scheduled for a nurse-only vaccine visit.
     In the unlikely event that the vaccine is still unavailable to us when the school year begins, we can provide a note to the school detailing the situation.
     We will keep you informed!