Catoosa & Dade County Expand H1N1 Flu Vaccine Availability

A low demand for the H1N1 flu vaccine in another area opens the doors for more groups of people to be vaccinated.
     Dade and Catoosa counties started giving the Flu Mist only to healthy kids ages 2 to 4, but now they've expanding that group.
     WDEF News 12's Mandy Odom tells us who's eligible now in continuing coverage.
     Catoosa County Health Department Nurse Manager Amy Carroll says they've given around 60 doses of the H1N1 flu vaccine, but they still have over 200 doses.
     She says it's important to get vaccinated.
     Carroll says, "It's a new virus that hasn't been circulated in the population, and you just don't know how your body will react to the flu."
     The Dade and Catoosa county health departments widened the restrictions, allowing healthy people from 2 to 24 to get vaccinated. Plus healthy people ages 25 to 49 who either live or work with children or work in health care.
     Shane Massey brought her two young children in to get vaccinated for both the seasonal flu and H1N1.
     She got vaccinated too.
     Massey says, "If I'm around them or other kids who may get it, then I'll be more likely to get it, and give it to somebody else. So I'd just rather not pass it along if at all possible."
     Massey feels like it's better to protect her kids from the swine flu, and encourages others to get vaccinated too.
     Nurse Carroll says the vaccine is safe.
     Right now, they only have the Flu Mist with the live virus, but she says it's just a different way to administer the vaccine.
     Carroll says, "It's just like say a chickenpox vaccine. It's a live vaccine and so is MMR. It's just the way they manufacture it, and then the way your body reacts to the vaccine."
     The Health Department is taking walk-ins now, and they're already making plans for when they get the injectable vaccine in.
     In Catoosa County, Mandy Odom, WDEF News 12.
     Also remember that kids under 10 years old will require 2 doses of the vaccine.
     The nasal vaccines for seasonal flu and H1N1 must be administered 4 weeks apart.