The effects of flu season have not yet hit the State College area, according to officials, but the recent shortage has excluded anyone who does not meet the criteria of a high-risk patient from immunization at local medical facilities.

Local medical offices received a certain number of vaccines, which are only available according to certain conditions. Before the shortage, many people would seek the vaccine as a way to prevent the onset of the flu.

Local health care providers followed guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which classified people over 65 as the highest priority. The list also consists of women who are pregnant, children under 6 months old, adults with chronic health problems like asthma or kidney disease and health care workers who have face-to-face contact with patients.

Mount Nittany Medical Center has done just that.

"We don't have any vaccine left. The vaccine we had back in February was distributed to area facilities to high-risk patients. We also provided immunizations to high-risk employees. We have no vaccine available for the public," said Emma Smith, employee and occupational health coordinator for the medical center.

Centre Volunteers In Medicine (CVIM), a non-profit clinic for lower-income families, has not been exempt from the effects of the shortage.

"We certainly have [been affected] because we haven't received as many vaccines this year. We received 20 this year, only for diabetes patients, and we could have used hundreds," said Executive Director Celeste Newcomb.

CVIM received between 100 and 200 vaccines last year before that year's shortage occurred, she said.

University Health Services (UHS) obtained enough vaccines to immunize 400 high-risk students, said Ellen Nagy, UHS marking manager. The deadline for these students to receive their shots was Tuesday afternoon.

"Whatever is left is turned over to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. They have asked providers who have vaccine left over to be community-minded and turn over what's left to give it to people at highest risk. It's not a requirement," Nagy said.

She said that although UHS officials considered alternatives to the flu vaccine like FluMist, a newly marketed vaccine that is administered through the nose instead of a shot in the arm, officials decided against it.

"We talked about it, but I think we had enough doses for those at high-risk, so we didn't take the conversation at any further. FluMist is not recommended for people at very high risk. It's more for healthier people instead of our students," Nagy said.

Amy Barnyak, a licensed practical nurse at the Bellefonte Medical Clinic, said the clinic is considering using FluMist as a traditional vaccine alternative.

"We haven't received FluMist yet, but we will be giving them to high-risk patients. There are no vaccines for non-high-risk patients," she said.

Nagy also said that as far as she knows, no cases of the flu were reported to UHS.

"We're seeing a lot of students, but we haven't seen any true flu. Usually, doing blood work and other tests validates the real flu," she said.

However, State College is better off than most of the state.

Even with 340,000 new doses of flu vaccine from the federal government, about 1 million high-risk Pennsylvanians will not be able to get shots this year, state Health Secretary Dr. Calvin B. Johnson said yesterday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.