Back-to-school shots needed

The beginning of the school year each fall can be a real shot in the arm for students across the state.

Literally.

Montana health officials have laid out a regimen of immunizations as one way to stem outbreaks of common childhood diseases.

To make it fair for everyone, all public-school students must get all the immunizations on the specified time schedule. Exemptions are allowed in certain cases.

Last year, as classes were wrapping up, school nurses and county health officials diligently sent out notices to parents outlining new immunization shots and boosters the state would be requiring for students at the start of the 2004 school year.

But, the sometimes glacial speed of administrative rule change being what it is, those requirements were put off for another year until they underwent thorough review.

Now they take effect this fall.

Flathead City/County Community Health Director Boni Stout helped make sense of it all.

Here's the minimum the state will accept for students to enter kindergarten this year:

. Four DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis) shots, with the last after the fourth birthday; pertussis is the medicos' name for whooping cough, which manifested itself in a major outbreak this past year.

. Three polio shots, with the last after the fourth birthday.

. Two MMR shots (measles, mumps, rubella); the second shot became mandatory on July 1.

That should do it for kindergartners.

But older students and their parents need to be aware of another slightly confusing situation.

Last spring, school nurses sent home letters notifying middle-schoolers of a new state requirement for a Td (tetanus, diphtheria) booster: Children entering seventh grade who were at least 11 years old had to get the shot if they had not received one in the past five years.

But that requirement's been delayed. The booster won't be mandatory until school starts in 2006.

Here's why, according to Stout:

Remember that whooping cough outbreak?

A new Td vaccine is being developed that contains a dose of whooping cough vaccine, as well. If you like initials, it's the TdaP vaccine.

If children got the pared-down Td vaccine this year, it would be another five years before they could take advantage of the new three-way vaccine.

State health officials figure it would be better to have them wait one year rather than five to be protected from the highly-contagious disease.

If you feel your child must have the TdaP shot now, that's fine.

But the vaccine is not widely enough available for the demand a state requirement would create.

And it's expensive. At $42 a dose, Stout said, parents might want to wait.

The government's Vaccine for Children Program subsidizes childhood vaccinations, letting the county Health Department give away the vaccine and charge only for what it costs to administer the shot.

To get that federal funding, the state needs to fill out a lot of paperwork. That, in itself, will take time.

The upshot is, if you received a letter from the school nurse this spring telling you to get a Td booster for your seventh-grader, you can ignore it until next year.

Flathead City/County Health Department offers inexpensive childhood vaccinations every day in its main-floor offices at the Earl Bennett Building, 1035 First Ave. W., Kalispell.

The times there are 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-4 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays, the shot clinic runs all day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Satellite clinics are held in outlying towns:

Bigfork - 2-4 p.m. first Thursday each month, Senior Citizen Center, 639 Commerce St.

Columbia Falls - 9 a.m.-noon second Tuesday each month, Columbia Falls Volunteer Ambulance Building, 31 Seventh St. W.

Whitefish - 1:30-4 p.m. second Tuesday each month, Golden Agers Senior Center, 121 Second St.

Canyon Area - 2-4 p.m. third Thursday each month, Canyon Community Church, Coram School Lane, Coram

No child will be denied vaccine due to an inability to pay.