Flu and respiratory illnesses are on the uptick in Alaska, as they are nationwide, and some medicines are in short supply both locally and nationally.
“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in folks coming through the emergency department, both adult and pediatric patients, unfortunately,” said Bartlett Regional Hospital’s director of marketing and communications Erin Hardin.
According to the Alaska Department of Health, many parts of Alaska are experiencing hospital capacity limitations on both adult and pediatric units (including ICUs) due to high inpatient volume and limited staffing. Fewer than one-in-five Alaskans —18.7% —- have received their seasonal influenza vaccine, according to the health department.
While there currently are no shortages of the flu vaccine within Juneau, Hardin said there is a shortage of the prescription drug Tamiflu, which is commonly used to fight off respiratory viruses once infected.
“There is an increased demand for Tamiflu, which is causing the shortage, not just in Juneau but all across the country,” Hardin said.
Hardin said that according to the Federal Drug Administration’s website the demand for Tamiflu has overtaken supply. Given the nationwide demand, pharmacies all across the country are starting to see shortages where demand is particularly high, and Juneau is no exception to this.
“Here at the hospital, we do have Tamiflu but we are preparing to ration if we need to and that would be that we reserve Tamiflu for our patients that are experiencing the most severe influenza,” Hardin said. “We definitely have orders out with alternate suppliers to get more like many other hospitals and healthcare facilities do because there really is no alternative to Tamiflu for battling the flu.”
Hardin said In just the last week Bartlett has seen over 10 different patients come through the emergency department with flu-like symptoms, roughly half of those patients being pediatric. With the uptick in influenza A and respiratory syncytial viruses being seen, Hardin said the hospital strongly encourages people to get the flu shot if they haven’t done so already.
Pharmacist and owner of Ron’s Apothecary Shoppe Scott Watts said that in addition to experiencing a shortage of Tamiflu, his pharmacy is also seeing a shortage of liquid Tylenol and Ibuprofen.
“Tamiflu, we just looked into getting that recently and that’s still unavailable to us,” Watts said. “It’s been unavailable all season, we don’t have any demand for it until this time of the year and so I haven’t ordered it since last year, so we haven’t seen any of it this year, unfortunately.”
Watts said that while he can’t confirm exactly how many cases of influenza A specifically have come through the pharmacy, he said they have definitely seen an increase of viral infection related illness since November. Additionally, Watts said that at this time it’s unclear as to when the pharmacy can expect to have Tamiflu in stock.
“We’re monitoring it every day so that when our wholesaler’s have it or looking at alternate wholesalers then we’ll definitely get it, it’s just a shortage supply issue, kind of a sign of the times right now,” Watts said.
Director of marketing and communication for SEARHC, Lyndsey Schaefer, said that SEARHC is currently only experiencing a shortage of Tamiflu in the pediatric dosage but are still stocked for the adult dosages at this time.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, oseltamivir (available as a generic version or under the trade name Tamiflu) is approved for treatment of flu in children 14 days old and older. The CDC recommends if a child is younger than 1-year-old, the dosage is often 3 mg/kg/dose twice daily. If the child is 1-year-old or older, doses then vary by the child’s weight. For adults, the recommended amount is 75 mg twice daily.
“For us at SEARHC there is a shortage of the pediatric dosage, but we do have plenty of the adult version and we’re currently working on getting restocked in the pediatric dosage,” Schaefer said. “We have seen a spike in cases involving flu-like illnesses across the consortium within November and December specifically.”
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
