Vaccine Shortages

Although vaccine shortages happen sometimes, they are usually brief and usually only affect one vaccine at a time.

Vaccine Shortages

Shortages rarely leave kids unprotected and fortunately don’t lead to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases – thanks to already high levels of vaccination.

High levels of demand for shingles vaccine has lead to shortages and Shingrix manufacturing facilities are already at maximum capacity.

In some cases, shortages have led to temporary changes in the immunization schedule for some vaccines, especially for children who are not high risk for those vaccine-preventable diseases.

Currently, there are shortages or limited supplies of:

hepatitis B vaccines from Merck (pediatric monovalent hepatitis B vaccine)
hepatitis A vaccines (because of the hepatitis A outbreaks and increased demand)
Shingrix vaccine (high demand)

Unlike past shortages, most vaccine shortages these days are limited and don’t result in missed doses.

History of Vaccine Shortages

Past shortages have included:

DTaP, MMR, Prevnar, Td and Varivax shortage (2002)
Prevnar shortages (2001-2004)
Typhoid shortage (2005)
Menactra (2006)
Hib (2008-2009)
Hepatitis B vaccine for adults (2009-2011)
Kinrix (2007) – DTaP-IPV combination vaccine
ProQuad (2007-2012) – MMR-Varicella combination vaccine
Adacel (2013) – Tdap vaccine
Pentacel delay (December 2015 through 2016)
Td – November 2016

And there have also been several flu vaccine shortages and delays.

Vaccine Shortages