KITTITAS COUNTY- In 2 1/2 hours on Tuesday, 157 Cle Elum-Roslyn Elementary School students were given the swine or H1N1 flu vaccine to protect them from future sickness.

Thus began the Kittitas County Public Health Department's effort to vaccinate younger school children in Kittitas County, an age group that's on the federal priority list of people who should get early inoculations.

On Wednesday 53 children in Easton schools received vaccinations and 14 Damman School children received them on Thursday. There are about 95 students in Easton and 40 students at Damman.

Next on the list in the coming week is Kittitas Elementary School on Monday, Mount Stuart Elementary School on Tuesday and Ellensburg Christian School and Thorp schools on Thursday.

"It was amazing to see everyone work together so well and vaccinate 157 kids in less than three hours in Cle Elum," said Amy Diaz, the health department's public information officer. "Everyone is doing the best they can to reach children with the vaccine as quickly as possible.

"How the vaccine is being distributed nationally is making it a real challenge."

Some don't want it

Cle Elum-Roslyn Elementary has 391 students, so more than half of the children didn't get the vaccine because parents didn't return their students' consent forms/medical history information.

Unreturned forms are an indication parents don't want their children to receive the inoculation, and that's why not all students this week received the vaccine.

On Thursday, packets announcing future inoculation days were sent out with Mount Stuart students.

Parents are urged to have students return the completed consent forms to school as soon as possible.

About 90 percent of the inoculations given this week to younger school children were with the nasal mist, the remainder received injections because some couldn't receive nasal doses mostly because they have asthma, Diaz said.

The inoculations next week also will feature mostly nasal mists for elementary students, with shots for those with asthma or other chronic conditions.

Diaz said no school in the county in the past two weeks has reported  absentee rates higher than 10 percent, which is when they are required to inform the health department.

Faster effort?

She said although the nationwide production and distribution of nasal and injectable swine flu vaccine is slower than expected, the health department expects to have enough for the schools and age groups that are now scheduled.

"We are working as quickly as we can to reach the priority groups according to federal guidelines as soon as we can with limited resources," Diaz said.

Diaz said schools are being scheduled for clinics only as the vaccine arrives locally and a definite supply is assured for a specific vaccination clinic.

"We can't go any faster because larger amounts of vaccine are not available," Diaz said.

Public health department staff, paramedics, EMTs, nurses and retired nurses have been called in to help with the school-based inoculation effort.

Morgan Middle School students have been scheduled for vaccine injections on Nov. 16-17, and it's expected that consent forms will go home with students on Monday.

Diaz said going to the Ellensburg middle school in mid-November was due to not having enough nasal spray vaccine on hand for the remaining two elementary schools in Ellensburg.

At this time there are adequate supplies of injectable vaccine for older students, she said, and local health officials want to administer it to school-aged children as soon as possible and not hold on to it.

More nasal vaccine could come to the county sometime in the last two weeks of November for the remaining elementary schools, Diaz said.