FREEPORT, GRAND BAHAMA \uff96 Hundreds of Florida senior citizens and at-risk adults, anxious over U.S. vaccine shortages, are paying for a private cruise to the Bahamas this month to get their flu shots.
\nOrganizers said 313 people had taken the Flu Vaccination Cruise to Freeport, Grand Bahama Island on the Discovery Cruise Line as of Wednesday. Hundreds more will take the cruise today, next Tuesday and Wednesday, and for the rest of the month.
\n\uff93I\uffb4m doing this because I can\uffb4t find a flu shot anywhere else,\uff92 said cruise passenger David L. Weiss, 40, of Tampa. \uff93Before I started getting my flu shots three years ago, I had the flu every year. It was awful.\uff92
\nWeiss said recent press accounts of the U.S. shortage had heightened his fear of missing the annual shot.
\n\uff93It wouldn\uffb4t be life or death if I missed it, but it would be a nuisance,\uff92 Weiss said. \uff93I would have the flu. I would miss three days of work and suffer great aggravation.\uff92
\nAnna Hall, a Freeport nurse and midwife who was administering the flu shots Wednesday to cruise-goers, said senior citizens are especially in need of the vaccine.
\n\uff93They\uffb4re just like babies all over again,\uff92 Hall said. \uff93They are especially vulnerable to the cold weather.\uff92
\nTwo brothers from Homosassa Springs, both in their early 70s, beamed in satisfaction as Hall administered their shots in a side room next to U.S. Customs at the dock. Although the brothers wanted to remain anonymous, they talked openly of their fears.
\n\uff93These vaccinations are very important when you\uffb4re getting up in the years like we are,\uff92 said the younger brother, 70. \uff93There have been shots offered in our county, but they disappear in a heartbeat. That\uffb4s why we\uffb4re here. We don\uffb4t want to die of a flu.\uff92
\n\uff93That felt good,\uff92 said the older brother, 73, as he walked away on his crutches.
\nA Florida-based transport\/travel company, Immediate Services, is sponsoring the vaccination cruise. About 800 shots were still available Wednesday, at an overall cruise cost of $162 and can be reserved by calling 1-800-937-4477.
\nMarketing director Espin Tandberg said his company, whose major projects include Miami\uffb4s new high-speed ferry, got the idea for the cruise from recent news stories of U.S. citizens traveling from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia for shots.
\n\uff93With the need in Florida, we figured people would want to combine a vaccine with a nice cruise,\uff92 Tandberg said.
\nFlorida\uffb4s supply of flu shots has lagged far behind the demand this year. Six thousand free vaccines disappeared within 48 hours at a Get Health Florida fair in Central Florida last week, and 3,000 more were given out Wednesday in Seminole County.
\nMeanwhile, Tandberg has contracted for more than a thousand Fluarix brand flu shots, imported from Europe, via Coral Pharmaceuticals.
\nThe owner of Coral Pharmaceuticals, based in Freeport and Nassau, said she thinks U.S. import regulations may have something to do with the shortage.
\n\uff93I don\uffb4t know if the shortage is a perceived shortage or an actual shortage,\uff92 Carleta Jervis Carolina, also a registered pharmacist, told the Boca News. \uff93I personally believe that the FDA rules on what can be imported into the U.S. are having a big effect.\uff92
\nCarolina added that it\uffb4s \uff93only natural\uff92 for the Bahamas to begin supplying vaccines to residents of the Southwestern United States, since Canada has already been supplying the northern part of the country.
\n\uff93People in the Bahamas don\uffb4t get flu vaccines,\uff92 she said. \uff93That\uffb4s why we have a surplus available to us. We\uffb4re happy to help.\uff92
\nA Canadian-born cruise assistant on the Discovery Sun, asked her opinion of the Florida \uff93vaccine cruise\uff92 occurring this month on board her ship, had a less flattering take.
\n\uff93I think it\uffb4s the most ridiculous, American thing I\uffb4ve ever heard,\uff92 said the young woman, who wanted to remain anonymous. \uff93There are plenty of flu shots for those in the U.S. who need them. The shortage is just media hype.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Sean Salai, Boca Raton News<\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People in the Bahamas don\uffb4t get flu vaccines,\uff92 she said. \uff93That\uffb4s why we have a surplus available to us. We\uffb4re happy to help.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}