The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department missed out on administering nearly one-third of the influenza vaccinations it normally does for school children this year after a problem with the formulation of the nasal spray caused health-care providers nationwide to receive fewer doses of that form of vaccine.
Candace Nunley, office manager for clinical operations at the KCHD, told Kanawha-Charleston Board of Health members Thursday that the department was down 1,800 shots because the it didn't receive the shipment of intranasal vaccine it had expected. All providers this year were affected, so many doctors offices also did not have enough of the intranasal vaccine available, Nunley said.
"Many parents will opt for the nasal spray," said KCHD administrator Lolita Kirk. "Because we weren't able to provide it, we had fewer children getting the shots."
The nasal spray is a live vaccine approved for use in those between 2 and 49 years old. Roughly half of kindergartners opt for the nasal spray, Nunley said. The health department now has a few hundred doses of the nasal spray on hand, and will have more in December. Nunley encourages parents to bring their children to the KCHD to receive the intranasal vaccine.
"It was just a fluke with the manufacturer," Nunley said. "Since that happened, we just didn't have enough to go out to the schools."
It will be hard to tell whether the 1,800 missed shots will correlate to a higher instance of flu for school children this year, but Nunley stressed that the KCHD still has plenty of doses of the regular vaccine.
"It's just a matter of them getting the shot over getting the nasal - the parents need to tell them that, this year, it's time for the shot," Nunley said.
Dr. Michael Brumage, health officer for the Kanawha health department, said the agency still is gathering responses for its Adverse Childhood Experiences survey.
The 15-question, anonymous survey focuses on respondents' childhood experiences and their demographic information. The department hopes to take the results and determine if their is a correlation between negative experiences in childhood and poor health outcomes in adulthood for residents of the Kanawha Valley.
To take the survey, go to the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department's website at http://www.kchdwv.org/ and click on the green icon that says "The Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey."
The board also swore in Martha Yeager Walker for a full term on the board. Walker, a former state legislator and former cabinet secretary for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, joined the board in May to fill the unexpired term of Shannon Snodgrass, who resigned from the board in March.
The board held a moment of silence for Dr. Donald Rosenberg, a former health officer for the KCHD who died in October. Rosenberg served as the health officer for the department from 1986 to 1999, and again as the interim health director in 2003.
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