Nasal flu vaccination to be distributed by Public Health
Services
Flu season is on the horizon and once again the San Benito
County Health and Human Services Agency is offering a free vaccine
clinic. The purpose of the clinic is twofold
– it gets the vaccination out to residents for free and it helps
county staff practice their emergency preparedness plans.
Nasal flu vaccination to be distributed by Public Health Services
Flu season is on the horizon and once again the San Benito County Health and Human Services Agency is offering a free vaccine clinic. The purpose of the clinic is twofold – it gets the vaccination out to residents for free and it helps county staff practice their emergency preparedness plans.
“We decided to do a different kind of flu clinic,” said Claudia Arnold, the county’s immunization coordinator and immunization registry director. “We also use this as an exercise.”
Last year’s drill serviced adults 65 and older and those with chronic illnesses with an injectable vaccination. This year participants will receive FluMist, a nasal spray that is approved for use by healthy people ages 2 to 49. It is not recommended for pregnant women, children on aspirin therapy or people with chronic conditions such as diabetes or asthma.
“You use a little applicator and spray it into the nose on one side and then the other half goes into the other nostril,” Arnold said.
The nasal spray is better than the shot vaccination, Arnold said.
“This is a live virus. It’s no longer frozen,” Arnold said. “It is just refigerated and it works in the nasal passages. It catches the flu when it is first coming into nasal passages.”
As many as 50 staff members and volunteers will be on site at the Veterans Memorial Building to administer the 750 dosages of FluMist, said Samela Perez, the public information officer for the health department.
“It’s completely free and the whole family can get serviced at the same time and be on their way,” Perez said.
The staff will be using the flu clinic as a drill. They will time each person who comes to the clinic.
“It will better prepare us to respond in an actual disaster or emergency,” Perez said. “We are drilling in a way that benefits our population.”
Last year’s clinic serviced 243 people and the average time from registration to exiting the clinic was eight minutes.
Arnold is serving as the operations chief for the drill. After that, they will register for the event and will wait in line to receive the spray. One important part of the drill is that staff will be able to enter participants into the county’s immunization registry.
“The more people we have from the population, the better we will be if there is ever an emergency situation,” Arnold said.
The secure database would allow immunization records to be accessed from anywhere, once it is up and running nationwide.
“If there were ever a real emergency,” Arnold said, “Like in Louisiana [Hurricane Katrina], even though people were scattered all over, we would be able to pull their records. Records would still be safe and could be sent [anywhere.]”
Arnold said her hopes for the clinic are that it goes as smoothly as last year’s event.
“It only took eight minutes and that was with the senior population, from when they registered to when they left,” Arnold said. “In an emergency situation, we are expected to take care of the whole population in a certain amount of time – over 50,000 [people] in a short amount of time – so these exercises help us in our planning.”
