An opportunity for parents to get a H1N1 vaccine for their children is coming up Tuesday.
That's when the Forsyth County Department of Public Health will administer 1,700 doses of the H1N1 vaccine on a first-come, first-served basis to children ages 2 to 18 who do not have a private health-care provider.
The vaccine being used on Tuesday won't be administered by injection. Rather, it's a nasal mist that uses a live, attenuated (weakened) vaccine.
Starting at 1 p.m., the vaccine will be available at the Health Department at 799 N. Highland Ave. The flu clinic will be open until 8 p.m., or until all 1,700 doses have been administered. Children under 10 years of age will need to receive a booster dose of vaccine 3 to 4 weeks after the first dose.
The vaccine will not provide protection against the seasonal flu, and health officials encourage people to get both kinds of vaccine.
Although the vaccine will be provided at no charge, if a child has insurance or Medicaid, parents are asked to bring their insurance or Medicaid cards so that the county can bill Medicaid or the insurance company and recover some of the costs of the vaccination process.
County health officials ask parents to be patient. Although not enough vaccines are available for everyone right now, federal officials have told local officials that there will be eventually.
For the moment, at least, it looks as if the swine flu is becoming less of a problem in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. After absences reached a high of 20 percent at one school Monday, they declined the rest of the week.
On Monday, 126 -- 20.4 percent -- of the 615 students at Whitaker Elementary School either stayed home or had gone home by the end of the day. Although students may have been out because of other types of illness, school officials presume that many of those students were sick from the H1N1 virus, or swine flu.
By Thursday, only 67 Whitaker students -- 10.9 percent -- were out.
The Monday absences at Whitaker were the highest that the school system has seen so far and, in general, absences declined throughout the school system during the week.
On Monday, 11.9 percent of students in the school system were out. That went down to 10.4 percent on Tuesday, 10.2 percent on Wednesday and 9.5 percent on Thursday. On Friday, the figures for Friday absences were not yet available.
Although school officials can't know with certainty whether the percentages will continue to decline, the trend is encouraging, said Theo Helm, a spokesman for the school system.
"There are more people coming back to school," Helm said.
He encouraged students to continue to take basic health precautions.
"They still need to wash their hands," he said.
kunderwood@wsjournal.com
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