To combat the likelihood of an influenza outbreak on campus, the Welty Health Center opened a two hour flu-shot clinic on Wednesday, Sept. 16 in the Reid Campus Center ballroom. While this clinic did not offer the H1N1 vaccine that is due out in mid-October, it provided a convenient location for students seeking relief from the common flu to be inoculated for a cost of $25.
“It definitely helped that there was a specific place to go and do it,” said senior Gabrielle Boisrme. “While it is offered at the Health Center, it can be hard to find an opportunity to make it over there.”
The College has been offering influenza vaccinations on request at the Health Center, but decided to put on a clinic to reach as many people who wanted to be vaccinated as possible. Despite locating the clinic in Reid, turnout was still a trickle of students. The nurses running the clinic suspect that not everyone may have been aware the event was going on.
“There may have been a problem with the listserv,” said Amelia Grinstead, an RN at the Health Center. “Many of the upperclassmen who we vaccinated today only heard about the clinic through their friends.”
Regardless of the low turnout, the Health Center sees the clinic as an improvement over the number of students who would have sought out the vaccination on their own. It also gave them a dry run for the clinic that they will hold when they receive the H1N1 vaccine.
“We are not sure when we will hold the H1N1 clinic because we have not yet been told when we can expect to have the vaccine on hand,” Grinstead said. “When that information becomes available, then we will notify the students when our H1N1 clinic will be.”
Information about the school’s planned response to the H1N1 pandemic can be found at http://www.whitman.edu/content/emergency/pandemic/swineflu. The amount of doses available to Whitman will be determined by the Walla Walla County Department of Health, which in turn receives its allotment based of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national analysis.
“We consider Whitman a priority in terms of vaccinations because it is a school,” said Harvey Krouter, Administrator of the Walla Walla County Department of Health. “While the CDC has not released exactly how much vaccine our county will receive, I estimate that around 1,500 doses will be made available for faculty and students,” said Krouter.
The county’s recommendations can be found on the Walla Walla County Department of Health webpage.
