Officials have said that people covered by health insurance in the state of South Carolinians are not eligible to get vaccinated for flu at county health departments.

State officials indicated that the situation would change when the county health departments receive shipments of the vaccine. Flu shots are not available at county-level health departments across the state for patients covered by Medicare, Medicaid or private health insurance, according to Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesman Mark Plowden.

Plowden said that the DHEC has been testing this new policy for the first time and has been advertising it since the previous year. The agency said that DHEC will focus its limited resources on people who are uninsured and underinsured and asked the people with health coverage to get vaccinated from health centre that can charge them for the same. The flu shot at the department is priced at $25 for adults and $13 for children.

The fees were earlier waved by the DHEC for patients at county clinics covered by Medicare or Medicaid as it was being charged to the government. Backordered shipment is set to arrive at eth centres and this would allow the health centres to again provide free vaccines to insured patients.