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A shot at flu prevention

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN

sackerman@tampatrib.com

Published: November 3, 2009

TAMPA - Lisa Wright Rogers has vaccinated hundreds of children, so the registered nurse knew what she was doing Monday when she told Beth Podraza to go first.

"Hold her hand," Wright Rogers called out as she rolled up Podraza's shirt sleeve, swiped her arm with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball and sank a needle into her skin.

Just a trickle of blood, but not one tear.

Then she turned to Podraza's 7-year-old daughter, Michaela: "You can do that."

Week 3 of Hillsborough County's campaign to vaccinate public school students and others against swine flu brought hundreds of parents and squirming children to four after-school sites.

Families, some with strollers, lined up outside Jefferson High School shortly after 3 p.m. By 3:30 p.m., the line had grown to about 50 people, with more standing inside where health officials had about 1,000 doses to offer.

The vaccine is available this week and next to elementary school students, those in virtual and charter schools, their siblings and parents, and teachers, said health department spokesman Steve Huard.

"Technically, everybody in this line will get a shot if they want it," he said.

Mitchell Elementary teachers Regan Musgrove, Debbie Allen and Melissa Carl made the trek across town to Jefferson. Musgrove and Carl have had a handful of students out sick with swine flu, but they mostly were being cautious.

And Carl is pregnant. The vaccine wasn't available at her obstetrician's office, so the district's efforts to ensure students and staff were protected were welcomed.

"I'm thankful that they're offering it," she said. "I haven't been able to get it anywhere else. I don't know where I would have gone."

Children had to have their parents or guardians present and they had to hand over a signed permission slip before they could get vaccinated.

"We've had some screamers," acknowledged Wright Rogers, who was supervising the site. "Nobody is really hurt. They're just scared."

For the most part, parents like Podraza chose shots instead of the nasal mist, which contains a weakened live virus.

"People are listening to the rumors," Wright Rogers said. "The mist is just as effective."

And it won't cause illness, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said, but some people have reported side-effects such as sore throats and headaches.

That was enough evidence for the Mitchell teachers.

"We're just enough unsure," Musgrove said, "not to want it."

Nationwide, there are not yet enough doses of the swine flu virus to meet the demand. That should change, health care workers say, later this month.

Health department workers will return to middle and high schools in two weeks, depending on supplies, Huard said. They'll be back at after-school centers in another month, when students 9 years old and younger will need a second dose of the vaccine.

Michaela's mom didn't want to think about the second shot. Not yet, not when the first one left her daughter red-faced and frightened.

"It wasn't fun," the Roland Park second-grader admitted, but she didn't cry.

Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144.

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