A Catholic high school in Laurel will be closed Wednesday after five students came down with swine flu, a day after Virginia received the region’s first doses of H1N1 flu vaccine.
St. Vincent Pallotti High School’s principal said he is trying to prevent the spread of flu. About 100 of Pallotti’s 510 students were out of school Tuesday, according to its website.
Virginia’s 83,700 doses of nasal-mist vaccines were given to hospitals, clinics and local health departments for their workers at risk from contact with sick patients.
James Farrell, director of the Virginia Department of Health’s immunization division, said the state was expecting a shipment of injectable vaccinations to arrive this week.
“Only 20 percent, maybe 30 percent of the overall vaccine supply is going to be [the nasal mist], so they’re going to have to use that judiciously,” Farrell said. “Certainly we’re focusing that on just the healthy groups who are eligible.”
The nasal mist can be given only to healthy patients ages 2 to 49, so injectable vaccines are needed for other at-risk patients, such as infants, sick patients and pregnant women.
As more shipments arrive, vaccines will be prioritized for those high-risk groups, Farrell said.
By month’s end, Farrell hopes the state will have received enough doses to vaccinate the public. Vaccinations cost nothing, though doctors may charge administrative fees.
In Maryland, officials at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene are still waiting for all of the 31,600 nasal-mist doses that were supposed to be delivered Tuesday. Only a few localities have reported receiving shipments. As in Virginia, the first wave of vaccinations will be given primarily to health officials. The doses also will be used for a target group of healthy children and young adults between the ages of 2 and 24.
Maryland health officials are expecting at least 900,000 vaccinations to be delivered throughout the state by the end of October, according to spokesman David Paulson.
District officials are expecting their first shipment of 36,000 nasal-mist vaccines, the maximum available at the time the order was placed, to arrive this week. They will administer the first wave of vaccines to health care workers, at no cost.
