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Stop Flu at School Program Being Scaled Back Statewide

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons

An annual statewide school vaccination program is being scaled back.

The state Department of Health’s “Stop Flu at School” program provides free flu shots to students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The program will be still be offered to all elementary and intermediate schools on the neighbor islands, but only a select number of public schools on Oahu will be able to participate.

Private schools will also no longer be eligible for the program.

This is because of a steady decline in funding and resources for the program.

Dr. Sarah Park is the State Epidemiologist.

She says there are other options for parents to vaccinate their child if their school is not eligible this year.

Parks says there shouldn’t be any issues with vaccine supplies and people should get vaccinated now.

Information packets and vaccination consent forms will be distributed to families in participating schools in early October. Vaccination clinics are scheduled to begin November 1.

More information can be found here: http://health.hawaii.gov/docd/disease_listing/influenza-flu/

Casey Harlow was an HPR reporter and occasionally filled in as local host of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
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