COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Nearly a million doses of the swine flu vaccine have been recalled. First and foremost, experts say the recall is not a safety issue.
The pre-filled syringes were vaccines for children ages 6 months to 3 years old.
About 800,000 doses were recalled by the manufacturer. Officials from Sanofi Pasteur say the doses may not be as potent as the should be.
The recall is not a safety issue and experts tell us children who got the shots are in no danger. Now local health officials are trying to figure out how many of the recalled doses came here and if anyone got them.
Just before they were shipped the doses were tested for potency and everything was fine. But follow-up tests after they were shipped showed the vaccine's strength had dipped.
"There’s nothing that needs to be done even though the potency may have dropped a little bit," said El Paso County Health Department medical director Dr. Bernadette Albanese.
The medical director for the El Paso County Health Department says they got 200 doses of the recalled vaccine, but they sent them on to doctor's offices and other providers.
"We know where they've gone and we are still in the process of identifying if any of them have been given to patients or not," said Albanese.
The Pueblo Health Department says they didn’t get any of the vaccines in question. But it's possible local doctors and other providers got some of the recalled shots directly from the manufacturer.
"We don’t want the vaccine to continue to be used so we needed to identify those doses still sitting in refrigerators to make sure that they are no longer being used," Albanese said.
El Paso county officials say none of the recalled shots were given out at the recent public flu shot clinics.
Children younger than 10 are supposed to get two doses of the swine flu shot several weeks apart. Experts say this recall doesn't change that.
"Even if your child had received one of these recalled doses you should still keep them on schedule for receiving their booster dose," Albanese said.
Experts say even though the flu is taking a bit of a break right now, it will be back in a matter of weeks.
Some of that will be seasonal flu, but experts don’t yet know how strong swine flu will return. They say this is the perfect time to get yourself protected from both kinds of flu.
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