Parents of ailing children desperately seek H1N1 vaccines

Eight-year-old Jenevieve Duczman has been hospitalized three times this year with pneumonia and other lung problems.

Born 12 weeks prematurely, the Schaumburg girl has cerebral palsy and chronic respiratory problems, and weighs only 38 pounds.

She's been doing better lately, until a weekend bout with a sore throat and ear infection.

Concerned about the H1N1 flu virus, also known as swine flu, her parents have been hunting for vaccine for her, but most private providers like their doctor don't have it. Suburban Cook County, where they live, so far has made vaccine available only to health-care workers and Palatine schools.

"We've been worrying about her health, but something like this would be devastating," her mother Joan Duczman said.

Joan has two healthy children who have to wait for a vaccine like everyone else. But for her ailing daughter, she said, "I don't understand why doctors can't give you a prescription so seriously ill patients can go ahead of everybody."

Suburban county health departments initially said doctors and pharmacies were to be the leading providers of H1N1 vaccinations. But the health departments and hospitals got the vaccines first, and the supply is so limited that doctors and pharmacies are still waiting to get theirs, and are now hoping for shipments by mid-November.

Some doctors are distributing shots in Chicago, where the city health department ordered directly from the federal government and got 150,000 doses starting early in October.

But due to delays manufacturing the vaccine, nationwide shortages are raising the question of who should get the vaccine first.

From the beginning, health departments in Illinois have asked people to comply with federal guidelines that give priority to those at greater risk of flu complications or those who take care of the sick: pregnant women, health care and emergency medical workers, those who live with or care for infants under 6 months, children and young adults age 6 months to 24 years, and those age 25 through 64 with certain medical conditions like asthma, diabetes and immune deficiency.

In case of a shortage, the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued more restrictive voluntary guidelines which state health officials are considering adopting.

Those newer guidelines say priority should be restricted to pregnant women, people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months, health and emergency medical workers with direct patient contact, children 6 months through 4 years of age, and children 5 to 18 with chronic medical conditions.

The Cook County Department of Public Health would consider tightening restrictions to sick children and pregnant women if necessary, spokesman Sean McDermott said, but is hoping to get a shipment of 20,000 vaccines by early next week which would allow it to stick with the current broader guidelines.

But even the existing guidelines are not being enforced.

At a Kane County clinic in Elgin Monday, Shelly Nguyen of Pingree Grove said she waited more than three hours to get the vaccine for her 2-year-old daughter.

She told clinic personnel she did not qualify for the vaccine because she is 37 and healthy, but they told her everyone there was getting it.

When she found out Wednesday that Kane County has canceled further mass immunizations and switched to appointments only because of a lack of vaccine, and that her pregnant friend was unable to get the shot, Nguyen felt terrible.

"That's the part that upset me," she said.

Meanwhile, 7-year-old Rachel Williams, a leukemia patient who lives in Algonquin, faces her own challenges getting the shot.

She was diagnosed at 4, went through three years of chemotherapy, and is doing better, but her immune system was seriously weakened by the treatment.

So not only is she susceptible to flu complications, she's susceptible to catching something from others who attend mass vaccination clinics, which in some cases have drawn thousands of people who wait hours in line. An appointment may be better for her, if she can get one.

Her mom Barbara Williams tried Rachel's pediatrician and oncologist, and she's a manager of a doctor's office, but none have the vaccine.

"I think it's horrific that we as parents with a seriously ill child have to go on the prowl looking for this," she said. "As parents, we're frustrated, and I'm not the only one."