While seniors, sick people and other worried Americans have been lining up for hours outside flu clinics across the United States, record numbers of vaccine seekers are searching for flu shots in a less visible way on the Internet.
Staff at Maxim Health Systems of Columbia, Md., watched the number of visitors to their website, , skyrocket from just dozens of daily visitors in September to thousands in October, said spokesman Steve Wright.
Records show that 34 people surfed to the site Sept. 6, Mr. Wright said, while 110,000 visited on Oct. 14, the day when an elderly woman died after collapsing from exhaustion in a lineup for a flu shot.
The peak was more than 126,000 visitors on Oct. 15, although those numbers have declined since the vaccine shortage forced the company to cancel the rest of their flu clinics for the season, he said.
"It's going down pretty fast now, as people realize there's no drug left any more," Mr. Wright said.
At another site, , concerned Americans have deluged the site's operator with e-mails requesting advice about finding flu shots.
"We've received so many inquiries that we are creating a special section on Canada Drug Talk dedicated to flu vaccine," owner Steve Emmer said in an e-mail.
Hitwise Inc., a New York-based company that monitors Internet traffic, reported that affluent seniors represented the largest demographic segment of the wave that hit .
Hitwise said other sites that drew more interest were:
, a site advertising an anti-viral drug, which increased its traffic 306 per cent last week as compared with the week before;
, promoting a nasal flu vaccine, which saw a 2,592-per-cent increase from the previous week.