DOCTORS surgeries have been running out of flu jabs as demand has soared in response to fears of a bird flu pandemic.

Kendal's Captain French Lane surgery cancelled four flu clinics last week as its supplies ran dry while the Station Road Surgery ran out two weeks ago.

"We ordered our flu jabs last year and we didn't expect this to happen," said Pauline Byard, the Station Road surgery practice manager. "We're expecting to do 350 more flu jabs over what we did last year, we will be getting in fresh supplies in two weeks.

"Quite a lot of people with chronic disease or the over 65s don't bother with the flu vaccine normally but this year, with all the publicity and some misdirection in the press over bird flu, they have decided to go ahead with one."

Problems have been exacerbated as big manufacturers, including GSK and Sanofi, have themselves been struggling to keep up with the increased demand.

At the Captain French Lane surgery, practice manager Andy Robinson said they had got through 1,000 vaccines in two weeks, the amount they would normally use in a month.

This was prompted by bird flu but also in delays getting supplies since the World Health Organisation had been late in notifying drugs firms over what flu strains should be guarded against.

l The Health Protection Agency has stressed that the normal flu vaccine is unlikely to work in any pandemic of avian flu. A new vaccine would have to be developed should the bird flu virus mutate into a form which could spread from human to human - something which has not happened.