H1N1 Vaccine in Illinois

With more than half of the state's counties reporting confirmed cases of the so-called swine flu, Illinois health officials reported Thursday that the state should get an initial delivery of nearly 2 million individual doses of H1N1 flu vaccine by mid-October.The state Department of Public Health said in a statewide teleconference call that a first shipment will include 1.5 million doses to 2,783 health-provider sites outside Chicago. Nearly 500,000 doses will go to 1,045 sites in the city. Provider sites had to sign an agreement with U.S. health officials to vaccinate only people in high-priority categories. That includes pregnant women, caregivers to infants younger than 6 months old, children and young people from 6 months to 24 years old, health-care workers, and 25- to 64-year-olds with serious underlying health problems.After the most-at-risk segments of the public are immunized, the rest will be allowed to get the vaccine, department spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said, but no timeline has been set for when it would become more widely available. So far the department reports more than 400 Illinois residents have been hospitalized from the H1N1 pandemic virus, and 17 have died. The vaccine is being made by four manufacturers gearing up to produce 20 million H1N1 vaccine doses a week for as long as necessary, Arnold said. Those weekly deliveries would include 660,000 doses outside Chicago and 200,000 to Chicago.State officials urged the public to seek information about the flu and efforts to contain it by visiting the Health Department Web site: ready.illinois.gov.wmullen@tribune.com