As schools offer vaccines, city urges against flu panic
School district officials launched the district's H1N1 vaccine program in dozens of its schools yesterday, as city health officials urged people to avoid flooding emergency rooms over cold or flu-like symptoms.
Masterman High was one of 36 schools in the district's Central region whose students - about 400 of them - turned in a parent consent form and were given the first wave of H1N1 vaccines, which are administered in the nose, according to a district spokesman.
A total of 1,600 students in the central region were vaccinated yesterday, said spokesman Fernando Gallard.
Across the district, 27,700 students who returned their consent forms were approved to get a vaccine, he said.
Vaccinations will be administered by region on designated days. Each school in a region will receive enough vaccine for students who returned consent forms signed by a parent or guardian and were approved for the program.
Students with pre-existing medical conditions, such as asthma, will not be given the vaccine, Gallard said, and their parents are advised to consult a doctor. Children under 10 should get a second dose of the drug roughly a month after taking the first, although details of that program remain unclear.
Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has said that any family with a child in the district will be able to get a dose, but district officials still encourage caregivers to pack pupils with alcohol-based hand-sanitizers and teach them proper hand-washing techniques as well.
If a pupil falls ill, parents are expected to pick up their kids when called by the district.
Officials have noted that school dismissals will be based on the city's recommendations and that no school will close unless a large number of teachers become ill.
Individual charter schools have a separate schedule for vaccinations. To find out about a particular charter, contact that school directly.
Meanwhile, Donald Schwarz, the city's public-health commissioner, urged most people to avoid going to the emergency room or their physician's office for routine cold and flu-like symptoms like sore throats and mild fevers.
Schwarz said that influenza activity has expanded rapidly in the last two weeks, prompting people to rush in for medical treatment. He said that only the pregnant, people with serious chronic illnesses and parents of ill children under six months of age should immediately seek treatment.
"I am not raising an alarm here about the virus," Schwarz told reporters at City Hall yesterday.
"I'm saying that we have people in Philadelphia who are seeking medical treatment unnecessarily."
Schwarz said that people who feel ill should stay home from work or school. The city is temporarily suspending a rule for its employees that required a note from a physician if they stayed out sick or missed work caring for a sick child for up to five days.
"We are asking other employers in the city to do the same," he said.








