By Katherine Albers
The Naples Daily News
NAPLES, Fla. — The vaccine for H1N1 flu, commonly known as swine flu, will be in Collier County by mid-October, health officials said Thursday.
Beyond the usual places, the vaccine will also be offered at Collier County public schools and day-care centers.
“We have widespread activity in Collier County,” said Dr. Joan Colfer, director of the Collier County Health Department. “We knew with the start of school, we would see more transmission in school children and in day cares. Students are very effective transmitters.”
Colfer unveiled the department’s plans to disseminate the H1N1 vaccine, which should arrive in Collier County in mid-October.
She stressed the county will focus on getting five groups of people immunized first. Those people are: pregnant women; parents with children under 6 and child-care providers for young children; people aged six months to 24 years; people aged 25 to 64 with medical conditions that put them at higher risk for influenza-related complications; and health-care and emergency medical services personnel.
Colfer said the health department also has a plan to get the entire community vaccinated. She said the program will be voluntary, but there are many ways the department will offer the vaccine.
Private physicians have ordered vaccines through a state vaccine program, she said. About 65 Collier County medical practices are on the list.
In addition, the health department will dispatch teams to day cares and schools and vaccinate children with the consent of parents.
“We plan to have two teams of people to rotate through the schools and one team to go to the day care centers that want us to come,” she said.
Superintendent Dennis Thompson said the district plans to allow the teams to come to the schools with the most parental consent first. He said the district anticipates that two to four schools will be visited per day and that 50 percent to 80 percent of the district’s population, or 20,000 to 32,000 students, will receive permission from their parents to be inoculated.
Thompson said the information is being given to principals and he will meet with the parent representatives from the schools’ parent teacher organizations and school advisory councils today to discuss the plans with them.
Asked if teachers would be required to receive the vaccine, Thompson stressed the vaccines are voluntary. He said the district has stressed school personnel use their own personnel judgement.
“I think the good thing about talking about this since April is that we have been able to get a lot of information out to people,” he said.
Thompson said the district is asking teachers and students to be vigilant about their health. He stressed that teachers and students should stay home if they are sick.
“My biggest concern is on our athletic teams,” he said. “Athletes sometimes have this mentality of, ‘I can make it through, coach.’ Small kids will tell you if they are feeling bad, but the older students often want to try and make it through.”
Colfer said the public will also be offered H1N1 at community flu clinics, which will be offered at locations in North Naples, south Naples, Immokalee and Everglades City, and at Physician’s Regional Medical Center hospitals.
Residents should get both a seasonal flu shot and the H1N1 vaccine and practice good hygiene, Colfer said.
“Wash your hands every time you think of it,” she said. “Please stay home if you are sick. Twenty five percent of people who have died from H1N1 in Florida had nothing wrong with them.”
Florida has recorded 91 deaths from H1N1.
“These are excess deaths, preventable deaths,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to die of this when we have a vaccine.”
Colfer said the H1N1 vaccine has been paid for by the federal government, but said those getting the shots should bring their insurance cards so the department can bill the insurers for the administrative fee.
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