SYRACUSE — A doctor with St. Joseph’s Health is among those concerned about a shortage of the vaccine used to combat shingles. The Atlanta, Georgia–based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined that 99 percent of the people over age 40 have had chickenpox, which makes them “vulnerable to shingles,” Dr. Sandra Sulik said […]
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SYRACUSE — A doctor with St. Joseph’s Health is among those concerned about a shortage of the vaccine used to combat shingles.
The Atlanta, Georgia–based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined that 99 percent of the people over age 40 have had chickenpox, which makes them “vulnerable to shingles,” Dr. Sandra Sulik said in her Jan. 14 remarks at Burnet Pharmacy in Syracuse.
Shingles “causes more problems” for people who get the condition as they get older, Sulik noted.
“It is critical that we’re able to provide a life-saving vaccine to them and to have that available when patients come in,” she said.
Sulik joined U.S Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) during his Jan. 14 visit to Burnet Pharmacy, where he highlighted what he called an “alarming” shortage of the vaccine that combats shingles.
Burnet Pharmacy is among the area pharmacies that need their supply of the vaccine replenished, Schumer noted.
“It’s not just here in Central New York. It’s throughout the country that there’s a shortage … in different parts of the country there’s a shortage of shingles vaccination,” he said.
The senator wants the essential staff at the Silver Spring, Maryland–based U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “consider this shortage an emergency,” his office said in a Jan. 14 news release.
The essential staff members are the employees that are still working despite the partial shutdown of the federal government.
If the FDA declares it an emergency, “they might be able to bring some workers back,” the lawmaker noted.
Schumer said in 2012 he helped approve a federal law that when there’s a shortage of a drug, the FDA would work with the pharmaceutical company involved to make sure that the impacted drug is available.
Under an emergency declaration, Schumer contends the FDA can work with the drug manufacturer and others to ensure that those affected are aware of when the new shipments will arrive.
The agency can also “expedite regulatory hurdles,” Schumer said and prioritize shingles-vaccine shipments to New York and other states with higher populations.
“If the FDA would do this, we could solve this problem,” he said.
CNYBJ sought reaction from the FDA, but its Jan. 14 email response included the following language, “We are reviewing details of your request so that we can determine if your inquiry falls under an excepted or exempt category of work. If it does not fall into an excepted or exempted category, we will respond to your inquiry after enactment of either an FY 2019 appropriation or continuing resolution for the FDA.”
As of press time on Jan. 16, it wasn’t immediately clear if the shingles-vaccine situation had reached a resolution.
The vaccine, Shingrix, was approved last year to prevent shingles, per Schumer’s news release.
It has been in “high demand” since United Kingdom–based manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)(NYSE: GSK) started producing its shingles vaccine. It is “90 percent effective, while others were much less effective, as low as 40 percent,” Schumer’s office said.
The shortage of the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) shingles vaccine happened “because not enough was produced to meet the high demand for the uniquely effective vaccine,” per Schumer’s release.
About shingles
Shingles is an “extremely painful and debilitating” rash that can lead to “even more severe complications,” per Schumer’s release.
The virus (also called herpes zoster) occurs when the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) — the same virus that causes chickenpox — is reactivated in the body. The VZV remains in the body for life and older people are more susceptible to shingles because their immunity to the virus declines at the cellular level.
Aside from the painful rash, shingles can produce “typical” virus symptoms including chills, fever, upset stomach or headache, and also spread communicable chickenpox.
