Get shots early to avoid lines
Education: Health department is giving vaccinations every weekday
Get shots early to avoid lines

By Wendy K. Kleinman

Published: August 4, 2008

It's not too late to avoid long lines for back-to-school vaccinations, health officials say.

Afternoons are still slow at the Oklahoma City-County Health Department, spokesman H.R. Holman said, and Susan Mendus with the State Department of Health said the expected crush of parents and children hasn't materialized.

"It hasn't been as bad the last few years because it seems like more parents are getting their kids immunized early,” said Mendus, the department's education and training director for immunizations.

What might be a bigger frustration than any wait is the issue of who brings the child, Holman said.

If someone other than the parent or legal guardian brings the child, they must have a note saying they have the authority to get the child vaccinated. Grandparents or other caregivers often bring children in, he said.

The health department at 921 NE 23 in Oklahoma City is giving back-to-school shots every weekday from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. New patients need to bring their shot records.

Shots are important because the only way to become immune is to get either the vaccine or the disease, and schools are easy places for diseases to spread, Mendus said.

"There's a lot of people now who don't realize how terrible the diseases are, and they think the side effects of the vaccine aren't worth the risk,” Mendus said. "A lot of us, we lived through chickenpox, but actually chickenpox can kill people, too.”

And although students can get exemptions for medical, religious or personal reasons and still be allowed to enroll in school, the commissioner of health can decide that those children must stay out of school during an outbreak, Mendus said.

"That really can happen,” said Mendus, citing a time in the early 1990s when some children were excluded from schools because of a measles outbreak.

Less than 1 percent of the about 49,000 children entering kindergarten have exemptions, she said.

She said most were for personal reasons including:

•Believing it is not good medical practice to inject anything into the body.

•Believing it is better to get the disease than the vaccine.

•Believing it is better to let nature take its course.

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