Smaller schools get first vaccine

POTSDAM — Children at Potsdam and Massena central schools likely will have to wait until the end of this month, and maybe as late as December, before getting the H1N1 flu vaccine.

St. Lawrence County's emergency preparedness coordinator, Brandi L. Wells, said a continuing shortage of the vaccine has forced county health officials to begin administering shots and nasal sprays at the region's smallest schools starting Nov. 16, while leaving the larger districts until later when more vaccine is available.

She said eventually north country health officials plan to offer free vaccinations to students in all 17 St. Lawrence-Lewis Board of Cooperative Educational Services schools.

Ms. Wells held an H1N1 information meeting Thursday at A.A. Kingston Middle School. She blamed the federal government for the delay in setting up school health clinics across the region, and said the county still does not have the amount of vaccine it was promised.

"We are just really disappointed in the government for taking so long," Ms. Wells said. "We know there are hundreds of H1N1 cases in the county right now."

Ms. Wells said the original vaccination plan called for setting up clinics in area schools in October. But she said so far the county has received only about 1,500 doses of vaccines in three separate shipments, far too little to hold widespread inoculations.

"Every week it is a surprise to us," she said. "We are told we are going to get a shipment and it doesn't come, or we get half of what we are supposed to. The government is a month behind in the production of the vaccine."

She said a new shipment of about 3,800 doses of vaccine is scheduled to arrive Friday in St. Lawrence County. If the vaccine is delivered as promised, she said, clinics at the region's smallest schools will be set up three days later.