Required Vaccinations for K-12 Available

The Allegheny County Health Department is offering extra free clinics this month to help families get their children caught up on school vaccinations. Vaccines required for students in grades K-12 will be offered on Saturday, September 12, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Healthy For Life Expo at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, downtown Pittsburgh. Admission is free.

The Health Department also is offering extended hours into the evening on September 21, 22, 28 and 29 at its vaccination clinic in Oakland. The clinic, located at 3441 Forbes Avenue, will be open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and provide free parking after 4:30 p.m. in the lot behind 3333 Forbes Avenue on those dates.

The Oakland clinic’s regular hours are Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Wednesdays, 1 to 8 p.m. No appointment is necessary and parents should bring their child’s immunization records with them.

The new requirements for the 2009-2010 school year are vaccines against meningitis, chicken pox, and a combination vaccine called Tdap that prevents tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, also known as whooping cough. Health officials report students without proof of vaccination will be excluded from school, unless their parent obtains an exemption for religious or personal reasons. In the event of an outbreak, however, students with such an exemption can be legally barred from school in order to keep a disease from spreading.

Some schools have already started excluding unvaccinated students, while others are giving them until October 1, which is the ultimate deadline to comply.

For more information, visit http://www.achd.net/.

The Greater East Liberty Vaccination Coalition

The impending Swine Flu crisis has brought to the forefront the value of immunizations. The federal governmental is moving quickly to develop an effective vaccine for this flu strain.

Presently, childhood vaccines do exist for many serious diseases and sicknesses. Unfortunately, even with the hard fought efforts of our school district officials and Health Department 100's of our youth have failed to acquire needed vaccines.

On Monday, May 11, beginning at 8:30 a.m., Dr Bruce Dixon will provide opening remarks at a "Vaccination Meeting" at the Bloomfield-Garfield Community Center, 113 N. Pacific Ave. (corner of Dearborn), in Garfield. Dr. Dixon will address the new requirements for childhood vaccinations. Youth who do not have the required vaccination in place will not be able to enter school in the fall.

Working in partnership with the Allegheny County Health Department and Pittsburgh Public Schools, we are seeking to form a collaborative effort that will work toward ensuring that all East End children have their required vaccinations in place for the beginning of the 2009/2010 school year.

If you have any organizational or personal engagement with groups of young people in the East End, we asked that you attend the meeting. We hope to develop an action plan that will result in engaging youth so that they will have their require vaccinations by the beginning of the school year. For more information or to RSVP to this meeting, contact Rick Flanagan at the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp: RickF@bloomfield-garfield.org or 412-441-9833.