The DuPage Health Dept. is hoping to get its H1N1 flu vaccines to more of those who need it most with a pair of appointment-only clinics next month in Glen Ellyn and Downers Grove.
The first session will be Saturday, Dec. 12 at Building K at the College of DuPage, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn. The second will be Sunday, Dec. 13 at Downers Grove South High School, 1436 Norfolk St., Downers Grove.
Appointments can be made through the county’s 24-hour flu hotline, (866) 311-1123. Walk-ins ill not be accepted at either session, officials say.
Like the health department’s daily vaccinations clinics, the two mass distributions are open to the priority groups who are most at risk from the new strand of H1N1 flu.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, those groups are:
n pregnant women;
n people who live with or care for infants younger than 6 months;
n health care and emergency medical personnel;
n anyone 6 months to 24 years old; and
n anyone from 25 through 64 years old with certain chronic medical conditions or a weakened immune system.
The clinics are an effort to reach more at-risk people, especially those who are not able to get the vaccines from the clinics each day at the DuPage County offices in Wheaton, said Dave Hass, spokesman for the health department.
The regular clinic — held on weekdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and on weekends from 3 to 7 p.m. or later, if necessary — are by appointment only, which can be booked through the county’s flu hotline as well.
So far, the county has been offering its vaccines only to the five high priority groups. Hass said health officials hope to have enough inoculations to reach the general population sometime soon, but no one is certain when that will happen.
“The hope is within the next couple of months — that’s a pretty open-air, wide-open window — there will be enough vaccines for everybody,” he said. “There is no guarantee. There is no schedule when more vaccines will be available.”
Hass did say that as soon as the vaccines or additional information is available, the health department will publicize it at www.protectdupage.org.
