City to offer drive-through flu vaccines

If you hear any talk about drive-by shootings next month, don't be alarmed. Carson City will be offering its annual drive-through flu shot clinics.

"Take Two, Stop the Flu," the city's flu vaccination clinic, will be split up this year to lessen the traffic at a single facility, Health and Human Services Director Marena Works told the Carson City Board of Supervisors Thursday.

Both clinics will be from

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 10, but the walk-in clinic will be at the senior center, 911 Beverly Dr., and the drive-through clinic will be held this year at the Nevada National Guard Armory, 2460 Fairview Dr.

Works told the board that Carson City received $389,000 from the Centers for Disease Control to conduct the H1N1 Influenza Campaign this year, but that it also had been tasked with handling the clinics for Lyon and Douglas counties as part of the grant. A mobile hospital will be used during the campaign to reach outlying areas.

"This is a great step toward regionalization," Works said. "State Health is 100 percent behind us and is hoping to develop a regional model from this to take throughout the state."

Works said that because the vaccine for the swine flu virus is new, it will be delivered "a bit at a time" on a priority basis to the most vulnerable age groups.

"They've looked at the way the virus attacks different age groups," she said, and results show that those who are 24 and younger "get more severely ill than 65 and older."

She said the speculation is that a similar strain of the virus came through 40 or 50 years ago, so older people tend to have some resistance to this strain.

Studies show that pregnant women are affected the most severely by the strain, she added.

The city received 5,000 doses for the vaccine clinics and up to 170 volunteers will be needed.

The only death from swine flu in Carson City was a 51-year-old woman with underlying medical conditions who was visiting the area. She died Aug. 7.