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Monongalia County Finishes School Vaccinations for H1N1
Posted Friday, November 6, 2009 ; 06:07 PM | View Comments | Post Comment
Updated Friday, November 6, 2009 ; 06:44 PM


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Health and school officials are looking forward to the next steps in the community.

Story by Stacy Moniot
Email | Bio | Other Stories by Stacy Moniot

MORGANTOWN -- Monongalia County's middle schools were the last to receive the vaccines Friday.

It's been a bumpy month or so for the schools, officials said Friday that it's hard to follow a curriculum when so many students are out sick.

We have roughly 700 kids in the school and several days we were up over 150 absences," said assistant principal Chad Skolny. "We were sending twenty kids a day home with fever."

There has been one death in the county from the virus, a high school student. That's a total of seven in the state.

As soon as the vaccine was made available, health officials began distributing it.

"We've had two teams out there going full speed, or over full speed, for the last two weeks," said the Jim Strosnider, the health department's execuritve director. "We've got a lot more to go."

Three public clinics already vaccinated almost 2,000 residents at the highest risk, and there is another one scheduled for Veteran's Day, but it's already booked up.

In coming weeks, getting the vaccine shouldn't be a problem anymore.

"It's coming out faster all the time," Strosnider said. "We've got two shipments this week. Obviously, we're stocking up, we want to get the schools taken care of. As the vaccine flow increases, so will the immunizations."

That means going to the next risk level determined by the Center for Disease Control, which includes people older than 24, with risk factors for complications from the virus, like asthma, obesity, or a weak immune system.

For now, schools officials hope the classrooms will start returning to normal.

"The teachers are ready to dig in and get all the kids caught back up," Skolny said. "They've had to be super flexible in their scheduling and their lesson plans and so I guess it's just going to be full speed ahead."

The Veteran's Day clinic is also the make-up day for any student who didn't receive the vaccine at school.

Elementary school kids can go to the Health Department in Morgantown from 3 to 3:30 p.m., middle schoolers from 3:30 to 4 p.m., and high school students from 4 to 4:30 p.m.

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