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Lack of Flu Vaccine Won’t Slow Down 1 Major Firm

One of the largest local employers doesn’t anticipate a surge in sick days and lost productivity resulting from the national flu vaccine shortage.

Other businesses may be less optimistic.

Judith Morgan Jennings, a spokeswoman for Cox Communications Inc., which employs 2,200 people at three San Diego facilities, said the broadband communications company doesn’t expect more people calling in sick with the flu this year as a result of the vaccine shortage.

But she did say that Cox has advised its employees to consult with their health care providers, and plans to hand out educational material on how to prevent catching the flu.

At Kyocera Wireless Corp., a CDMA wireless phone maker in San Diego with 2,100 employees, workers have received e-mail messages that this year’s flu clinic has been canceled, and “if they feel they need one (a vaccine) to go see their doctor,” said Brad Shewmake, a spokesman for Kyocera Wireless.

Kyocera Wireless Corp. is a unit of Kyocera International Inc., which is part of parent company Kyocera Corp. of Japan.

Shewmake didn’t want to speculate on employees’ absenteeism this flu season.

But he said that the firm hasn’t put out any guidelines and will leave it up to individual employees to decide whether they should stay at home to prevent the spread of the flu.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked healthy individuals to forgo flu vaccinations this year in favor of the elderly, children ages 6 months to 23 months and people at greatest risk for developing serious complications from getting the flu, such as AIDS and cancer patients and pregnant women.

This comes after British regulators announced on Oct. 5 that they shut down the nation’s largest flu vaccine supplier, Chiron Corp.’s Liverpool production facility.

As a result, Emeryville-based biotechnology firm Chiron will leave the domestic market short of 46 million to 48 million doses of vaccine.

The only other U.S. supplier, French drug maker Aventis Pasteur, will supply 58 million doses of vaccine, but that could take months.

Many elderly and people at high risk for developing complications have been scrambling to get vaccinated.

At Kaiser Permanente’s hospital on Zion Avenue in San Diego, people sitting in wheelchairs and elderly waited patiently for their turn to get vaccinated in the afternoon of Oct. 18.

For some people, flu shots may not have been a priority last year, nor this year.

Last year, Cox offered 1,600 employees working at the customer care center in Kearny Mesa flu shots at $15 per dose.

Only about 20 to 30 employees took advantage of the program, said Jennings. Though, she added, it’s likely that some employees may have opted to get flu shots from their health providers instead.

This year, Cox canceled a pre-scheduled flu clinic for employees at the Kearny Mesa facility altogether.

A 2004 study by the Society for Human Resource Management reported that 60 percent of companies surveyed offered flu vaccinations to workers, according to published reports. By one estimate, the shots cost employers $20 to $25 apiece.

Companies offer the vaccine programs assuming that it will pay off by keeping employees healthy and productive, the report said.

Between 10 percent and 20 percent of the U.S. population catches the flu during an average season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found vaccinating against the flu does pay off , vaccinated people had 43 fewer sick days and 44 fewer doctor visits as a result of upper-respiratory illness.

Still, Jennings remained confident that the flu season won’t disrupt its operations.

“We don’t anticipate more people calling in sick,” she said.

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