The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Area schools giving students mass vaccinations against H1N1 virus

Man, 68, drowns at Caesar Creek Lake
5/26/12
Water rescues prompt warning from health officials
5/25/12
Beach Waterpark sued for failure to deliver
5/25/12
Raleigh Trammell’s defense opens in felony trial
5/25/12
UD to move satellite campus to Dublin
5/25/12
> More headlines

By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer 10:45 PM Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Mass inoculations in Montgomery and Warren county schools to head off the H1N1 flu will begin as early as mid-October.

It will be the largest mass school inoculation in Montgomery County since the polio vaccinations of the 1950s, county Educational Service Center Superintendent Frank DePalma predicted.

Two other area counties aren’t planning vaccinations during school hours but are setting up public vaccination sites.

In Greene County, after-hour mass vaccination clinics for the public will be available at all high schools except in the Bellbrook district, where the Sugarcreek Education Center will serve as the site. In Miami County, a clinic is tentatively planned for the Miami Valley Centre Mall in Piqua.

All told, 37 school jurisdictions in Montgomery County — all public schools and some charter, private and parochial schools — are partnering with Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County to administer the vaccine. Those districts educate more than 82,000 students.

Officials think at least 30 percent of those students will be vaccinated.

“We believe we will vaccinate more children if we bring the vaccination services to them as opposed to relying on students and parents to go to a provider,” said James Gross, Montgomery County health commissioner.

Parents would have to grant permission for the free vaccinations. Some school districts were weighing whether to require parents to be present when shots are given to the youngest students, DePalma said.

Letters should go out to parents in early October. Officials hope to finish the first round of vaccinations by Thanksgiving, and a second round by the winter holidays, DePalma said.

Seventeen H1N1 cases have been confirmed in Montgomery County; six in Greene; three in Warren; two in Miami. Officials said confirmed cases are just a fraction of the total.

Share this article