Results tagged “swinefluvaccine”

The Health Department is holding weekend clinics for people in the priority groups—more details here—to get H1N1 vaccines. Here's a PDF of the locations and hours in each borough and there are two more weekends of clinics scheduled after the Thanksgiving Day weekend. Last weekend, 15,000 people opted to get the vaccines.

After opening up its weekend H1N1 vaccination clinics to priority groups beyond public school students, the Health Department gave out 15,606 free vaccines this past Saturday and Sunday (the previous weekend's clinics saw less than 4,000 people receive the vaccines). Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley told the Daily News that in spite of NYC's low infection rate, "We haven't escaped it entirely. Rates are falling in most of the country now, but they're still rising here."

Since turnout for last weekend's swine flu vaccine clinics for public school students was low, the Health Department decided to open up this weekend's clinics to other priority groups—pregnant women; anyone 4 years through 24 years of age; persons 25 through 64 with underlying health conditions that increases risk of severe illness or complications; anyone who lives with or cares for children less than 6 months old. And on the Upper East Side, at P.S. 290, the lines went for three blocks with at least a 90 minute wait.

The Health Department's first weekend of H1N1 vaccine clinics weren't very well attended, prompting officials to open up the clinics—originally just for students—to people in other priority groups on Sunday. This weekend, the Health Department will continue its program offering the free vaccine in the five boroughs to people in these groups: Pregnant women; Anyone 4 years through 24 years of age; Persons 25 through 64 years of age who have underlying health conditions that increases risk of severe illness or complications* ; and anyone who lives with or cares for children less than 6 months old.

Three Queens students were brought to the hospital yesterday after complaining of sickness right after they received the H1N1 vaccine. Within twenty minutes of getting vaccinated, one student of PS 124 in South Ozone Park "complained of a headache" says NY1, and overall 16 students said they felt ill. However, of the three girls brought to the hospital, one wasn't even given the vaccine in the first place! Maybe the dog ate her homework?

After news that Goldman Sachs (and Citigroup) received 200 swine flu vaccines out of 5,400 requested, which is the same amount as Memorial Sloan-Kettering received for its 27,000+ request for its workers, Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update decided to tap into the populist outrage.

While some think that focusing on how Citigroup and Goldman Sachs received swine flu vaccines is distracting, this is kind of annoying. The NY Times reports, "Citigroup has received 1,200 doses, more than half of what it requested, health officials said, and in late October, Goldman received 200 of the 5,400 doses it asked for. By contrast, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center received 200 of the 27,400 doses that it requested for its workers, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene." City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said, "My understanding is that Citi had multiple clinics and facilities, and they placed several orders. The person filling these might not have realized it was one company."

Now it turns out that one of the public school students given the swine flu vaccine without parental consent had to go to the emergency room after getting sick. Six-year-old Nikiyah Torres, who suffers from epilepsy (her parents had been waiting to see what their family doctor said about the swine flu vaccine) told WCBS 2, "He just gave me the needle, without asking me what is my name."

So much for those parental consent forms! Two public school students, one in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island, were given the swine flu vaccine without signed consent forms. The NYC Health Department told the NY Times, "We are working to determine how this occurred, and to implement additional safeguards."

Yesterday, the city's program to give NYC school students swine flu vaccines began at 125 elementary schools. A 9-year-old at PS 157 in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn who received an injection told the Daily News, "My mom told me that the flu would hurt more than the shot...It felt a little bit sharp, and it kind of hurted." Aww.

The NYC Health department is starting its swine flu vaccine program at 128 elementary schools today. According to WCBS 2, 40,000 doses were set aside for the students: "School nurses at those sites will administer the nasal spray vaccine starting Wednesday to students whose parents have signed consent forms. Nurses expect to vaccinate 15 to 25 kids per day, per school."

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hit the airwaves this morning, trying to reassure Americans about the swine flu vaccine. Noting that many people have been frustrated by the shortage, she said supply "is coming out the door as fast as it comes off the production line. We were relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy."

President Obama officially declared swine flu a national emergency. He signed a proclamation which, according to a White House announcement, "enhances the ability of our nation's medical treatment facilities to handle a surge in H1N1 patients by allowing, as needed, the waiver of certain standard federal requirements on a case-by-case basis."

The New York State Department of Health is getting a taste of its own ultimatum medicine. With only 23% of the swine flu doses originally expected to arrive by the end of October reaching New York, the State Health Department has to choose: Uphold a regulation that all healthcare workers receive the shot (which was temporarily blocked by a State Supreme Court judge last week) or make sure those most at risk receive the shot.

The Department of Education sent public school children home with letters asking parents for consent to give the students the H1N1 vaccine. While the CDC confirmed that 11 children died of swine flu last week, it remains to be seen whether parents will opt for the vaccine. One told WCBS 2, "I've decided not to give my kids the vaccine because it's just too new I just feel it's not a lot of research, so I don't know what the side effects are."

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control confirmed that 11 children died from the swine flu over the past week. This comes as manufacturing delays have resulted in less than 30 million swine flu vaccines being distributed by the end of this month—it was hoped that 40 million would be available. Now, the Post reports that the city is considering a way to make house calls for possible swine flu cases.

Throw out those tired old surgical masks, because the swine flu vaccine has come to cure us all! The first batches arrived in the city today as nasal sprays and are being given to children and medical workers at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. About 560 of the 68,000 doses were administered today, and the injectable version is due to arrive in the city next week.

Amid concerns that the H1N1/ swine flu vaccine might miss the peak, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told This Week With George Stephanopoulos that the vaccine will be available in the first week of October, two weeks earlier than previously thought. She said, "We are on track to have an ample supply rolling out by mid October, but we may have some early vaccine as early as the first full week in October. And we plan to get the vaccine rolling out the door as fast as it hits the production line. The earlier doses are probably going to be targeted to health care workers and other high priority groups, but the one dose means that people will be able to have a robust response in about 10- days of getting that first shot and that’s incredibly helpful." The other high-priority groups are pregnant women, people between 6 months and 24 years, people between 25-64 years with higher risk medical conditions, and caregivers of children under 6 months. Earlier this week, the Department of Health and Human Services found that one dose of the vaccine seems effective (versus needing to give two doses), which means "vaccine supplies now being made will go twice as far as had been predicted."