H1N1 vaccines come in short

Towson has received 3,000 of the 17,000 ordered H1N1 vaccines due to a vaccination shortage, according to vice president for student affairs Deb Moriarty. 

“Because the federal government is distributing [vaccinations] as it becomes available and there is currently a shortage… no one is getting very much,” director of health services Jane Halpern said. 

These doses will be distributed between two different clinics, starting on Nov. 2 at 2 p.m., according to Moriarty.

A plan to create a series of vaccination clinics has been developed by the Pandemic Flu Response Committee, a subcommittee of the TU emergency preparedness planning committee, and approved by members of the President’s Council to distribute the allotment, according to the e-mail.

 During the first clinic on Nov. 2 in the Burdick Hall Gym 1, there are three different groups of people eligible for vaccination, according to the e-mail sent by Moriarty. 

Those eligible for vaccination are students, staff and faculty who are pregnant; students, staff and faculty who are primary caregivers for an infant less than six months old and health professional students and clinical preceptors with direct patient contact working in hospitals and other clinical settings. 

The second clinic, taking place on Nov. 4 and starting at 7:30 a.m., is for degree-seeking students less than 64 years of age with documented serious chronic medical condition including chronic lung diseases, heart, liver or kidney disease and blood disorders, among others. Somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of Towson faculty and students are predicted to receive the H1N1 vaccine, according to Halpern. There is no definite way of knowing when Towson will receive an additional supply, according to Halpern. There is a possibility of receiving them in late November or early December, but nothing is definite. 

“The challenge is how you manage something that lots of people want but there is a limited supply of,” Moriarty said. 

“[The clinics] will be strict about getting the vaccine, what kind of documentation you need to have and students who are under 18 years old cannot get one of the vaccines without a consent form signed by a parent or guardian.”

Those who have already had confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus don’t need the vaccine.

“…Their infection confers immunity, just like a vaccine confers immunity,” Halpern said. “The vaccine gives you a dose of killed H1N1 virus which fools your body into making antibody to it. That’s what gives you immunity.

 “If you had the actual infection with live virus, then your body made antibody naturally, so you are immune.”

For more information on the H1N1 vaccination and clinics, visit the Dowell Health Center Web site.