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Pregnant women, children, and young adults will be given first priority when the new H1N1 vaccine arrives, said Dr. Dolores J. Gunn, Director of the Saint Louis County Department of Health. Everyone in Saint Louis County who wants to be vaccinated will have that opportunity once all the doses have arrived, Gunn said.

“We expect to receive the first shipment of New H1N1 vaccine in mid to late October and preparations are well underway to handle the distribution,” Dr. Gunn said.

Although the federal government has ordered doses of the new H1N1 influenza vaccine for all Americans, the entire order will not arrive at the same time. There will be an initial shipment distributed throughout the United States, followed by regular shipments thereafter until everyone who wants to be vaccinated against the new H1N1 virus has been vaccinated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) has issued guidelines regarding who should be eligible to be vaccinated first. Initial vaccinations will focus on those populations most vulnerable to this particular influenza strain.

The specific groups that will be eligible to receive vaccinations during the first round include:

• pregnant woman;

• children and young adults six (6) months old through 24 years of age;

• caregivers for infants under the age of six (6) months; and adults aged 25 through 64 with medical conditions that put them at risk for influenza-related complications.

Also included in the first round will be health care workers and emergency medical service workers to ensure that they are not spreading the virus to the patients they treat.

“Despite the initial focus on the most vulnerable groups, it is important to remember that everyone who wants a vaccination will be able to get one,” Gunn said. “It is not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when.’ There will be enough vaccine for everyone.”

The County Health Department is also stressing that until a vaccine is available, the only weapon available to fight the new H1N1 flu virus is prevention.

“Right now, we are playing defense. We don’t yet have a vaccine for the new H1N1 virus, so we are focusing our message on prevention,” said Dr. Mike Williams, Director of the County Health Department’s Communicable Disease Control program. “Once we have a vaccine for the new flu, we’ll go on offense, but until then, we have to heed the common sense warnings our parents and grandparents taught us.”

Children and adults should stay home from school or work until any illness has passed. Once a fever has broken, people should still stay home until they can maintain a normal temperature for at least 24 hours without the use of any fever reducing medicine.

For more information about the flu – both the seasonal flu and the new H1N1 flu – please visit the Saint Louis County Department of Health’s website or the CDC’s H1N1 website: www.stlouisco.com/doh

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