Syracuse University Health Services received 200 doses of nasal mist H1N1 vaccine Friday, said Carol Masiclat, a Health Services spokeswoman. SU announced the availability of the vaccine on its flu Web site Monday.

The first batch of H1N1 vaccines will be distributed solely to Health Services workers and people who work with young children. These include employees at the SU Early Childhood Education and Day Care Center and the Bernice M. Wright Child Development Laboratory School in the College of Human Ecology.

SU’s distribution is in accordance with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines. But unlike Onondaga County health worker requirements, shots will be optional for SU Health Services and childcare employees, Masiclat said.

The university hopes to get more shipments of the vaccine in coming weeks, Masiclat said. She could not give an exact date of arrival for when additional vaccines will arrive or how many the next batch will have, because she said shipments are sporadic and vary in size. Even when SU orders a batch from the CDC, it may not get the exact amount it ordered, Masiclat explained.

SU made plans to order enough vaccines for all students at the university, but that might not be possible because of limits on the national supply of the H1N1 vaccine, Masiclat said. When the other shipment does arrive, Health Services will encourage at-risk students to get the vaccination first, but it will be made available to the entire student body as soon as it arrives, she said.

‘It depends on what schools or other institutions in our area have a greater need,’ Masiclat said. ‘There are a lot factors that play into how many we get per batch. That batch may be different from week to week. It may be that we get batches of varying sizes on a regular interval. We might get batches on irregular intervals.’

Health Services is expecting a high demand for the swine flu vaccine, based on the high interest it saw from students in the seasonal flu vaccine. While exact plans for clinics depend on the volume of shipments of swine flu vaccine, Health Services has already started planning ways to accommodate the high demand.

Masiclat said Health Services is considering hosting clinics in Flanagan Gymnasium, as well as letting students get the shot by appointment, like with the seasonal flu vaccine. It also might impose a ticketing system for the clinics, similar to those held last month.

Health Services will also try to make the process more convenient for students by distributing tickets for specified times. ‘That ticket says that your vaccine time is between this time and this time, so you get a block so you won’t just sit around and wait,’ Masiclat said.

Some students have eagerly awaited the swine flu vaccine and expressed annoyance that it didn’t arrive sooner.

Ashley Maines, a junior political science and child and family studies major, said she thinks the fact that other universities around the country have the vaccine and SU doesn’t means that Health Services is at fault, not the CDC.

‘It doesn’t surprise me that we don’t have it right away,’ Maines said. ‘I’ve never been impressed with our Health Services. They make such a big deal about the flu that you would think they would have made a better effort to try to get it.’

On Oct. 24, President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency. Because of this, Michelle Estrella, a sophomore illustration major, said she’s concerned SU hasn’t received the vaccine until now.

‘I think it’s kind of ridiculous,’ she said. ‘We should have the vaccine, considering it’s such a state of emergency.’

Other students said they are not that worried that SU doesn’t have the vaccine yet.

Jolyn Wu, a senior public relations major who works at Crouse Hospital, said she understands why SU hasn’t received its first shipment. She said she thinks the first priority should go to hospitals and people who are at risk of getting swine flu.

‘It makes sense that those are getting higher priority in terms of who’s getting the vaccine first,’ Wu said. ‘There’s only limited supplies going out anyway, so even if it were available in the university, I don’t think it’s going to be available to the entire student population.’

rhkheel@syr.edu

Published on November 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm