PORTLAND, Ore. - Health officials in the Portland area learned Thursday that 45,300 doses of H1N1 vaccine will be shipped to Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties as soon as Nov. 13. The regional allocation will be slightly less than the prior week's shipment, continuing a pattern of steady vaccine delivery over time.

Roughly 40,000 of the doses in the latest batch will be injectable vaccine and the remaining 5,300 will be FluMist nasal spray.

FluMist is recommended for healthy people age 2 to 49 who are not pregnant; injectable vaccine can be administered to anyone older than 6 months.

Demand for H1N1 vaccine still exceeds the supply due to production delays. The slowdown reflects the complexity of the vaccination manufacturing process and the need to maintain the same quality assurance used for seasonal flu vaccine production. 

Meanwhile, in Southwest Washington's Clark County, agencies there are seeking 240 volunteers - including nurses - to help distributed its stock of vaccine coming Saturday, Nov. 14. Vaccines are being distributed by the Clark County Public Health agency at a community H1N1 vaccine distribution clinic. (Volunteers are eligible for the vaccine.)

Update on outbreaks
From Sept. 1 through Nov. 6, a total of 1,015 people in Oregon were hospitalized and 33 have died from Influenza A virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC catalogs influenza-related hospitalizations and deaths in 12 Oregon counties.

Though not all of these patients were tested for H1N1, public health officials have determined that nearly all of these patients were positive for pandemic H1N1 influenza.

All Influenza A cases, Sept. 1 through Nov. 6:

County                  Hospitalizations     Deaths
Clackamas                      80                    1
Clark and Region IV         95                   0
Columbia                           0                    0
Multnomah                     184                    4
Washington                     92                    2

Schools throughout the region are reporting anywhere from typical to somewhat-higher-than-usual amounts of absences due to influenza-like illness.

For the general public, the number of influenza cases remains higher than for a normal year. The risk of illness persists and the public is encouraged to take preventive steps.