FLU SHOT SHORTAGE HAS SOME LEFT OUT IN COLD.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem and Troy Anderson Staff Writers

NEWHALL - About 300 seniors who braved Tuesday morning's chill were turned away from a free flu shot clinic at the Santa Clarita Senior Center as the region faced a continuing shortage of the flu vaccine.

The American Red Cross canceled clinics this week throughout Southern California, and public-health clinics in the San Fernando Valley are expected to run out of flu vaccine beginning today, officials said.

But Dr. Laurene Mascola, chief of the acute communal disease control unit of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said the shortage is not a crisis and that more vaccine will be available by early December.

``We will get the vaccine, but the perception is that we're running short because there is a shortage in the private community - in the sense that it's not here yet,'' she said. ``People are panicking and if they see there's a clinic, they rush there.''

Early December shots would come just in time for the elderly and chronically ill who are advised to get flu shots. Once vaccinated, it takes about two weeks to build up an immunity before the flu season, which typically runs from late December through February, Mascola said.

The health department has had to cancel 30 of the 165 flu shot clinics scheduled so far this month because of problems in growing the cultures to make the vaccine.

``At this point, we are not able to provide additional vaccine at those clinics,'' John Schunhoff, chief of operations for county public health, told the Board of Supervisors during its meeting Tuesday. ``In some areas, there are clinics that will continue through this week with limited supplies. Starting (today), the San Fernando Valley clinics are out.''

He said the county has distributed the vaccine to nursing homes where people are the most vulnerable.