SWINE FLU VACCINES ARRIVE
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 -- 9:18 AM
Clark County?s Department of Public Health has received their first shipment of H1N1 vaccines, but it will be awhile before they?re available to the public.Ellen Moldenhauer with the Health Department says the vaccines arrived on Wednesday. They?ll be used to protect the county?s health care workers.
"At this point, we are covering our own staff, as well as EMTs, school nurses and quasi-medical folks that don't fall into the catchment of other hospitals," she explains.
While there?s no shortage of the vaccines, counties are only allowed to make one order per week. Their next step will be to order vaccines for school-age children.
"Many people in the community will already have received some information if they have school age children," she says, "because we're looking at that group next. As soon as we're into that, we'll expect to do more public clinic activity."
The department has monitoring area schools closely. They have seen some increases in absences due to flu-like symptoms, but no major outbreaks requiring the closing of schools.
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