By Jeff Hansel
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN 

Olmsted County Public Health plans its first H1N1 flu vaccination clinic Saturday for uninsured and underinsured at-risk children.

Approximately 1,000 doses of vaccine are available, "which isn't a lot," said spokeswoman Kari Etrheim.

Those in line Saturday will be told if vaccine starts to run short.

All kids in the area with underlying health conditions will be vaccinated first as vaccine becomes available, Etrheim said.

"We hope that the vaccine will keep coming in the next couple of weeks and the next couple of months, and we will continue to get the vaccine out to the public as quickly as we can," she said.

Then, future clinics will be opened to other risk groups, such as otherwise healthy children, young adults and, later, adults through age 64 with underlying health conditions. Senior citizens are not considered at risk because they are believed to have been exposed to a similar virus earlier in their lives.

Children and younger adults, by contrast, are not old enough to have been exposed and therefore have no immunity. That's why H1N1 has spread so rapidly as well as nationwide.

"It might be a while before we are able to cover the risk groups that we are looking at right now," Etrheim said.

Reporter Jeff Hansel covers health for the Post-Bulletin. Read his blog, Pulse on Health, at Postbulletin.com.

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