Lake County special ed students get H1N1 vaccine
In an unfortunate twist of fate, the day after a 11-year-old Buffalo Grove boy died of complications from H1N1 flu last week, the Special Education District of Lake County where he attended school received its first allotment of swine flu vaccine.
More than 200 SEDOL students received the shots this week at Laremont School in Gages Lake, where the boy attended classes.
The vaccine shipment's arrival so close to the boy's death was purely coincidental, SEDOL Superintendent Bill Delp said.
Officials had been trying to get their hands on the vaccine for two months through a request with the Lake County Health Department. Meanwhile, the boy had been sick and not attending school since Halloween so no one knew of his condition, Delp said.
"(He) had so many other complications, nobody has pinned it down to one thing," Delp said. "It wasn't just because of H1N1. (He) was probably one of our more medically-fragile students. He hadn't been at school or around any of our other kids. We didn't have the worry about the virus at that point."
Delp is relieved now that SEDOL has enough vaccines to inoculate 80 percent of its student population, a majority of whom are at higher risk than students at regular school districts.
"We serve the students that are medically fragile, the moderately- to the severely-handicapped students," Delp said. "We had, at our Laremont school, probably 50 or 60 students on respirators. Any kind of flu kind of hits them worse."
SEDOL serves more than 2,500 students in five schools at its Gages Lake campus and through on-site programs at its 36 member-school districts throughout Lake County.
Delp said he was surprised more students didn't get the shots this week. "It might have been the short notice," he added.
Officials plan to reach parents by phone and during parent-teacher conferences later this month to encourage vaccinations for the remaining at-risk students. For now, only SEDOL students can get the shots.
"We had requested it for staff because we knew caregivers were one of the high-risk categories," Delp said. But the health department limited access to students only.
That's because teachers are not considered a priority group for H1N1 flu shots by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, said Leslie Piotrowski, Lake County Health Department spokeswoman.
The CDC recommends at-risk groups should get the H1N1 vaccine first. That includes pregnant women, caretakers and those who come into contact with children under 6 months old, health care and emergency medical services employees, anyone from 6 months to 24 years old, and adults 25 years to 64 years old with underlying medical conditions such as asthma or diabetes.
Yet, it's up to the discretion of health officials who gets the shots. For example, the Cook County health department is working with the Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization - SEDOL's counterpart - to vaccinate both students and staff, NSSEO Superintendent Judith Hackett said.
H1N1 flu vaccine clinics are scheduled today in Arlington Heights and Mount Prospect for roughly 260 NSSEO students with disabilities and staff from three schools.