Along with their usual studies, many Horry County students had another school assignment Monday, get vaccinated for H1N1, or the swine flu.
Thousands of students will get the shots at school over the next few weeks. The shots are free, but not mandatory.
The vaccination clinics start at the elementary schools first, since the youngest children are the most vulnerable to swine flu. Aynor Elementary was among four schools to go on the first day.
Jeanne Doyle decided to have her 6-year old daughter get the vaccine, but only after giving it a lot of thought. "I've heard so many of my friends have said that it's not been out long enough to know what the reaction to it could be, and that was one of my biggest worries."
But Doyle says she talked to several doctors and nurses, who convinced her the vaccine is safe. DHEC officials say 65% of Horry County parents have signed consent forms, allowing their children to be vaccinated, which officials say is a good number. They'd like to reach 100%, but say they understand why some parents don't approve. "You can date swine flu back to the past pandemic when so many people died from swine flu vaccine. This one is safer, it's been approved, it's been tested, it's a good product," said Tom Russo, DHEC Region 6.
Availability of the vaccine is another concern.
Right now, DHEC has only enough shots to get them through this week and they hope to get another shipment by Wednesday to cover next week. The vaccine is simply not being produced as quickly as officials had hoped, but they believe there will be a vaccination for every student who wants it. "We're hoping that with the schedule that we have set up that we are going to have enough supply to vaccinate all our children," said Tammy Trulove, Horry County School District.
They'll start with elementary schools this week and next, then move to the middle and high schools. By the time they're finished, some 24,000 Horry County students will be vaccinated.
Health officials expect to vaccinate 1,200 students per day.
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Earlier story on carolinalive.com -
(12:45pm) H1N1 vaccines administered at Horry County Schools
DHEC began giving H1N1 flu shots to students in Horry County Schools Monday. They began at 4 elementary schools.
About 65% of parents in the county signed consent forms to have their children vaccinated.
Officials expect to vaccinate 1,200 students per day, and hope to have around 24,000 students vaccinated over the next several weeks.
Coming up tonight on NewsChannel 15 at 6:00 you'll see a full report on how the vaccination process went. That report will also be posted later today here on CarolinaLive.com.
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