Survey of vaccine distribution and delivery issues in the USA: from pediatrics to pandemics

Abstract

Vaccine distribution and delivery has become an issue of significant interest, given the threat of a pandemic influenza outbreak and the resulting need for coordinated efforts to distribute and deliver pandemic influenza vaccines into the hands of healthcare workers responsible for administering them. This review provides an overview of the issues that are most relevant to vaccine distribution and delivery, including routine pediatric immunization, combination vaccines, vaccine shortages and stockpiling, seasonal influenza vaccines and, of most current interest, a discussion on pandemic influenza outbreak issues and a list of future distribution and delivery challenges that may be faced during such an event.

Keywords::

• pandemic response
• routine immunization
• vaccine delivery
• vaccine distribution
• vaccine economics
• vaccine supply chain

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Commissioning Editor, Duc H Le, for the opportunity to disseminate the material in this paper, and the three anonymous referees for their comments and feedback, resulting in a significantly improved manuscript. This paper is based in part on information collected during a European study tour organized by the World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC), located in Baltimore, MD, USA. Special thanks to Joseph Bielitzki, Stephen Drew, Gyril Gay, DVM, Mary Richey and Terrance Leighton for their input on the information collected during this study tour.

Disclosure

The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Science Foundation.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The vaccine and immunization research of Jacobson and Sewell has been supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation (DMI-0457176, DMI-0456945). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.