WyBlog

While many New Jersey towns lack swine flu vaccine, health officers in Union and Sussex counties fought a different kind of shortage this weekend.

Officials in both counties had planned vaccination clinics after receiving their federal shipments of the H1N1 influenza vaccine. But what they didn't have was their promised allotment of syringes.

"A lot of places got the syringes and no vaccines. We got the vaccines and no syringes," said Rick Proctor, a Union County freeholder and health officer in five towns. "We had to scrounge around."

Proctor said organizers "ransacked the county supply" of syringes. He said he even had to buy pediatric syringes from a Scotch Plains CVS for a clinic today.

"There are major glitches in the ordering system," Proctor said. "We bought some, we borrowed some, and moved ahead ... (but) it's hard to know what this is going to look like next week."