Flu shot clinic scheduled

Flathead City-County Health Department has scheduled a flu shot clinic for Tuesday, Nov. 16, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Earl Bennett Building at 1035 First Avenue West in Kalispell.

The clinic is limited to pregnant women, people over 65 or adults with chronic medical conditions which place them at high-risk for complications of the flu. Children should come to the regularly scheduled clinic for flu shots.

Participants will receive vaccine on a first-come, first-served basis after a brief screening questionnaire. According to public health nurse Elaine Sedlack, a new shipment of 500 doses of vaccine made this clinic possible.

She said the department received a call last Thursday that the manufacturer was shipping Flathead County's final order. The news was a welcome surprise since the department was told a week earlier that the shipment was redirected.

The final clinic follows several weeks of immunizations given by appointment to people at high-risk for developing complications of the flu.

"We feel we've gotten most of the high-risk population," Sedlack said.

Together with the mass flu shot clinic in early October, that effort provided vaccinations to about 5,200 people.

Sedlack said staff were unable to reach some people on the priority list for vaccinations due to wrong phone numbers, misspelled names or telephones without an answering device. She encourages those people to come to the clinic.

Since most high-risk people now have immunizations, Sedlack said that healthy seniors over 65 who passed on a shot because of the shortage should come to this clinic. She said even people in their '90s had given up their shot for others.

To receive shots, people need to bring their Medicare or Medicaid card as well as a $1 co-pay. The department charges others $15 to cover costs.

Eight nurses will give shots and eight other employees will handle registration and prescreening for the Tuesday flu shot operation. Sedlack expects to exhaust the doses by noon.

The nationwide shortage of vaccine was triggered in early October when British authorities suspended the license of a major vaccine producer. In response, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control stepped in to redirect available doses.

Flathead County health department was holding its first-ever mass flu clinic on the same day the vaccine shortage was announced. The department eventually received all of the vaccine it ordered from the U.S. manufacturer.

Others in the valley, including Lake and Sanders counties and North Valley Hospital, had ordered from the British manufacturer and received no vaccine.

According to Sedlack, Flathead County redistributed about 1,300 of its doses. Recipients included nursing homes, North Valley Hospital and Lake, Sanders and Mineral counties.

Department staff then worked overtime to immunize people at assisted living facilities, high-risk patients referred by doctors and people who called in their names for the priority list.

Sedlack said the Flathead County won't request any of 22,500 doses shipped to the state of Montana under the apportionment plan announced Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

She said Flathead County would defer to the 16 counties in Montana which received no doses.

According to Sedlack, the flu virus that cropped up a few weeks ago in Missoula appears not to have spread. But she pointed out the flu season generally starts in Montana after the travel associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Unlike last year, Sedlack said influenza has not cropped up early nationwide.

For additional information about the final flu shot clinic, people should call 751-8110.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.