King County Public Health is responsible for the allocation of all H1N1 vaccine to the health care community in the County. Health care providers from across King County have been invited to order vaccine to provide to their patients and for staff who provide medical care. Over 400 health care institutions, practices and individual providers have requested vaccine so far, and virtually all of them will have received an initial allotment of 10 percent of their requested order for the flu season by Friday, Oct. 30, about 86,070 doses.

An additional 67,000 additional doses have been ordered and are expected to be in King County by Nov. 6, bringing the total vaccine delivered to King County at 153,000 doses. Vaccine is exclusively for individuals in priority groups. Check with your health care provider for H1N1 vaccine.

In addition to continuing to provide doses to health care providers that have ordered them, we intend to distribute vaccine to community venues including pharmacies. With our upcoming vaccine allocations, we will provide 15,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine to area pharmacies for distribution. We expect that this ongoing strategy will help ensure vaccine access to those individuals without a health care provider and also for those whose health care provider is not enrolled to receive H1N1 vaccine.

Public Health will post information about the times and locations of participating King County pharmacies by the middle of the first week of November.