If you weren’t one of the 350 people who heard about the free H1N1 vaccines, take it up with the Student Health and Counseling Center.
SHAC did not advertise — except on Cornell Mall — that the vaccines would be available on Friday and Monday for anyone under the age of 24, said SHAC Director Beverly Kloeppel.
“Widely publicizing would probably do more harm than good,” Kloeppel said. “Then you’d have a large volume of students for a small amount of vaccine. We actually wanted to try to get students who have more underlying chronic illnesses.”
UNM Hospital gave the Student Health and Counseling Center 500 doses of the H1N1 vaccine, Kloeppel said. She said Friday was the first day the vaccine was available to students not at highest risk. She said 250 H1N1 vaccines were distributed on Friday and 100 were given on Monday.
SHAC has only 50 vaccines left, Kloeppel said, and these will be saved for high priority groups: pregnant women, students under 18 with chronic health issues and health care workers. One hundred vaccines have already been handed out to high priority groups, Kloeppel said.
Robert Bailey, director of UNM’s H1N1 response, said the vaccines were only available to all students 24 and under for two days because the vaccine is still scarce.
“Basically what we do is look at how much vaccine we get — which is still pretty small shipments to this point — and look at what the priority groups are for receiving that vaccine,” he said. “The production of the vaccine just hasn’t been what was anticipated.”
Bailey said UNMH receives approximately 3,000 H1N1 vaccines every week. He said these vaccines are for patients and workers at UNMH and outpatient centers. However, he said that shipment only goes so far.
“For example, when we did our seasonal flu vaccine, we gave out almost 3,000 doses in one day,” he said.
Kloeppel said the clinic might open again for students 24 and under when another shipment of vaccines arrives.
“I’m really hoping as more and more of it gets released, then we’ll be able to offer it to anyone who wants it,” she said.
Kloeppel said the SHAC advertised vaccine availability with signs outside and inside the building. The SHAC Web site is updated daily with information on when the clinics are and who can get the vaccine, she said.
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Byron Piatt, UNM emergency manager, said UNMH gave SHAC 500 vaccines so fewer students will end up in the hospital with the flu.
“The hospital is trying to help us out, seeing as we’re part of the University community,” Piatt said. “The more people that they can get vaccinated at UNM, the less people who are coming into their clinics, so it lessens their burden, too.”
Kloeppel said students should check the SHAC Web site daily if they want to know when vaccines are available. For now, vaccines are only available for the highest
priority groups.
“We may change that as soon as Monday of next week, if we can get some vaccine,” Kloeppel said.
SHAC would need a shipment of at least 1,000 vaccines to do a mass immunization clinic in the SUB, she said.
Kloeppel said the recent death of student Raymond Plotkin, who lived in the dorms, shows how important immunizations are. Plotkin was chronically ill and was hospitalized with flu-like symptoms this month.
“I think the student’s death did publicize the need for immunizing students and demonstrated the tragic consequences,” Kloeppel said. “The clinics weren’t a direct result, but they couldn’t help but influence it.”
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Visit shac.unm.edu for H1N1 updates*
