Swamped by a shot in the arm

A well-regarded Newport Beach pediatrician and his staff finally are recovering this holiday weekend, after finding themselves at the center of the H1N1 flu vaccine scramble — and the resulting discussion about its distribution.

Steven Abelowitz and his Coastal Kids medical offices in Newport Beach, Laguna Niguel and Ladera Ranch ended up receiving 15,000 doses of the vaccine — what is thought to be one of the largest quantities of swine flu vaccine sent to a private practice in Orange County— and has since given more than 3,500 doses back to the county and other medical providers.

In the meantime, they’ve administered thousands of doses to clients and non-clients alike.

“It’s the biggest challenge by far that I’ve ever had to deal with, besides starting my practice,” Abelowitz said.

He said his practice started looking into the vaccine immediately after the outbreak of swine flu began.

“In April and May, we became aware of the H1N1 in Mexico. Very soon after, we started seeing some cases in our practice, which concerned us a lot,” Abelowitz said. “Influenza loves the winter. We thought, ‘If this is happening in spring, what is going to happen in the winter?’ Things are dynamic in pediatrics. Things change.”

He and his fellow pediatricians at Coastal Kids began examining advisories from the Centers for Disease Control about production, governance and distribution of the vaccine.

“Usually we work directly with the distributors,” he said. “I’ve been doing that for the 11 years I’ve been in private practice.”

But in this case, distribution was performed by federal, state and county governments, he said.

Initial estimates predicted that the vaccine supply would be available in August. Abelowitz said he ordered about 15,000 of the vaccines, based on the number of children he serves.

By August, the government began talking about delays in vaccine production, Abelowitz said.

He credited his practice’s back office manager with doing the work needed to prove to the CDC that Coastal Kids would commit to handling, storing and appropriately distributing the requested vaccine to the appropriate high-risk groups.

His practice also filled out large quantities of paperwork, and the back office manager called the government every day for status updates, Abelowitz said.