KU, county offer flu vaccination clinic

Additional flu vaccine has been obtained by the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department with the assistance of KU Student Health Services, enabling both to staff a mass dispensing clinic this month.

Approximately 1,300 doses of flu vaccine will be available for distribution to people in the Centers for Disease Control’s high-priority groups. The clinic will run from noon until 4 p.m., or while supplies last, Sunday, Dec. 12, in Allen Fieldhouse. The doses of flu vaccine were secured by Student Health Services and sold to the health department for re-allocation.

The health department has been advised by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment that it, too, will receive additional flu vaccine. If that vaccine arrives by the 10th, there will be more than the 1,300 doses available Dec. 12.

In addition, the health department has continued conversations with KDHE to secure additional vaccine for other local health care providers in the county. This vaccine, too, should arrive no later than mid- to late January.

For questions or to volunteer for the clinic, call the health department at 843-0721.

For information about flu prevention and symptoms, visit www.ku.edu/~shs/flu_vaccine_update.shtml.

High-priority groups:
• adults 65 years and older
• children ages 6 months to 23 months
• people 2 to 64 with chronic lung or heart disorders
• pregnant women
• people 2 to 64 with chronic metabolic diseases, kidney diseases, blood disorders or weakened immune systems, including people with HIV/AIDS
• children 6 months to 18 years on chronic aspirin therapy
• residents of nursing homes and chronic-care facilities
• out-of-home caregivers and household members of infants younger than 6 months
• health care workers who provide direct, face-to-face, hands-on patient care to those in the priority groups with regular frequency