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Area office working to recall swine flu vaccine
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A national, voluntary recall of H1N1 vaccinations produced by MedImmune has some local ties.

District 2 Public Health, a 13-county area that includes Hall, is busy working to return unused H1N1 nasal spray vaccines that are a part of the 13-lot recall.

"Our 13-county health departments got 2,400 doses of the nasal spray vaccine affected by this recall," said Dave Palmer, District 2 spokesperson.

"(Six hundred) of those doses were at the Hall County Health Department. Most of these doses were given as soon as we received them so the potency of the vaccine would have been at full strength."

The vaccines are being recalled because during "routine and on-going stability tests of the vaccine, the manufacturer found that the strength of the vaccine had dropped slightly below the pre-specified level," Palmer said.

Though the weakened vaccine is expected to still be effective, MedImmune voluntarily chose to recall any unused vaccines from the affected lots.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 4.7 million doses of the affected vaccines were distributed across the country in October and early November, but because the majority of the vaccines were administered when the doses were at full strength, it is not necessary to revaccinate those recipients.

Both the CDC and MedImmune report that the recall is not safety-related.