“This is a cooperative effort,” said HUDS Executive Director Ted A. Mayer last October. “We don’t want people to get sick.”
Due to these efforts, Rosenthal said UHS did not experience a significant increase in flu patients this year.
In addition, this year was “a mild season” according to Allen. “Most of the lack of influenza can be attributed to that fact,” he said.
To prevent the possibility of such a vaccination shortage occurring again, the federal government is now subsidizing pharmaceutical companies to encourage them to begin vaccine production.
Rosenthal said that scientists were also looking to see if the time which it takes to make vaccines could be shortened.
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—Staff writer Risheng Xu can be reached at xu4@fas.harvard.edu.