With worries about H1N1 cutting across St. Charles, the time for vaccinations couldn’t have come any sooner.

The first vaccinations will take place from 4 to 9 p.m. on Monday at St. Charles North High School, 255 Red Gate Road, Elgin’s Larkin High School, 1475 Larkin Ave. and Aurora’s East Aurora High School, 500 Tomcat Lane. There will also be clinics the following two weeks. The full schedule is available at the Kane County Health Department’s Web site.

Kane County Health Department Executive Director Paul Kuehnert said they have so far received only a quarter of the vaccines that they expected they would get, which is about 17,500 doses. About 5,000 of those doses went to health workers and volunteers. There are currently about 12,500 doses to go around to people who qualify to receive them.

According to Kuehnert, there are 192,000 people in the H1N1 risk group in Kane County. He said that they will be receiving more doses before the calendar year ends.

“There will be enough vaccine for everyone,” Kuehnert said. “But it will take some time.”

Kuehnert said since this is a national issue, the Center for Disease Control had to decide how to divvy up the doses of vaccine. He said there are about 82 million doses being put out nationwide.

Kuehnert said for those who plan to go on Monday to expect long waits, but he said they will try to serve everyone who goes.

“People just need to take a breath and say ‘I’m concerned about this, but I want to get my child (a shot),” Kuehnert said.

Kuehnert said he expects more vaccinations will come in next week. They are expecting a total of 65,000 doses.

Kuehnert said a big problem with getting the vaccine out is how long it takes to grow.
“What slows it down is it just doesn’t grow real rapidly,” Kuehnert said.

Kuehnert said that for the rare cases where an individual has been tested for H1N1 and knows they got it, a shot is not necessary.

District 303 Superintendent Don Schlomann said it will be interesting to see what happens with the students leaving and other residents coming in to try to get vaccinated. Schlomann said residents will not be allowed to “line-up at 2 p.m.” The school’s parking lot will open to the public at 3 p.m.

Kuehnert said there is so far no way to know when shots will be available to the general public.

Shots at Monday’s clinics will be available to:

•  Pregnant women
•  People who live with or care for infants under six months
•  Health-care and emergency medical services personnel
•  People aged six months to 24 years.
•  People aged 25 to 64 years who have medical conditions that put them at higher risk for influenza-related complications.