(Updated, 3:30 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – The state plans to distribute its first shipment of H1N1 vaccines to pediatricians and primary-care physicians early next week, the R.I. Department of Health said Thursday.
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The initial shipment of vaccines will be used only on infants and young children between the ages of 6 months and 5, R.I. Health Director Dr. David R. Gifford said in a statement.
Additional shipments received over the next eight weeks will be used to vaccinate pregnant women and children in grades K-12, who will be able to receive the vaccine at school in clinics that are expected to begin in November.
Parents will receive information about the school flu clinics over the next two weeks and will need to sign and return a form giving permission in order for their children to get vaccinated. The program is voluntary.
“Rhode Island’s goal remains to vaccinate as many children and pregnant women first because they are two of the most vulnerable populations and are the main groups getting sick,” Gifford said.
The next group of Rhode Islanders to get vaccinated will be made up of medical workers; first responders; young adults up to age 24; adults ages 25 to 64 who suffer from underlying medical conditions; and caregivers of infants ages 6 months and younger. Those people are expected to start getting vaccinated in early December.
The rest of the state’s population – healthy adults ages 25 to 64 and senior citizens ages 65 and up – will be vaccinated in January.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it expects to deliver 600,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine to Rhode Island before the end of the flu season.
Officials are asking residents not to call their doctors to ask about vaccine availability but rather to wait to receive further information.
Health providers who have enrolled in the health department’s H1N1 Vaccination Program need to tell the department how many patients they expect to vaccinate, with the list broken down by demographic group. Supplies will be distributed based on that information.
In Rhode Island, two people have been hospitalized due to influenza and no one has died from it since Sept. 1, according to the health department’s latest data.
Rhode Island doctors surveyed by the department last week said 3.1 percent of visits were for flu-like symptoms, compared with 1.9 percent across New England and 4.6 percent nationwide.
Additional information is available at health.ri.gov.
Right.
It’s now November 11th and the vast majority of pediatricians still have yet to recieve a single dose of the vaccine.
Call the department of health’s H1N1 hotline and ask where and when your toddler can be vaccinated and you will recieve a annoyed response of, “call back in a month”.
Although they said the exact same thing LAST month.