Free H1N1 vaccine for all people in high-risk groups

David Gulliver - posted 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18; updated 9 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18 with figures from second round of vaccination clinics.)

The Sarasota County Health Department is offering free H1N1 swine flu vaccinations on Saturday for people at highest risk of contracting the illness, and anticipates walk-in and drive-through clinics for everyone by the end of the month.

The department is offering the vaccine to pregnant women, children and young adults up to age 24, healthcare providers, parents and caregivers of infants up to six months of age, and people ages 25 to 64 with chronic health conditions like asthma, heart conditions or cancer. Those are the priority groups as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vaccination clinics will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the main Health Department center, 2200 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota, and George Mullen Activity Center, 4756 City Center Blvd., North Port.

About 1,000 doses will be available at the two sites, which officials believe is enough to cover people in the priority groups who have not already received the vaccine from their employers or private physicians. The vaccine will be provided on an "honor system," with no doctor's letter or other risk-group verification needed.

The vaccine will be available in the inhalbale FluMist form, which is preservative-free but uses a weakened, live version of the virus, and the injectable form, which comes in multi-dose vials and requires a preservative. (For more information, see our primer on the vaccine here.)

Health officials said the open clinics for the general population will begin sometime after Thanksgiving. Vaccination clinics also are under way in middle and high schools.

Last weekend's second round of vaccinations drew a slightly smaller response than the previous week. An even 3,000 children showed up and received the vaccine, for a two-weekend total of 6,495. That is a little more than half the number health department officials used in their planning, and about one-quarter of the county's elementary-age population.

 

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