First H1N1 Vaccine Clinic

Mobile Health Drive-By H1N1 Vaccinations from the Health Department.

by Bill Riales

Published: Wed, October 28, 2009 - 3:51 pm CST Last Updated: Wed, October 28, 2009 - 4:17 pm CST

MOBILE, Alabama - They began lining up just before dawn at Hank Aaron Stadium's parking lot--hundreds of people wanting their dose of the H1N1 vaccine. Libby True had two reasons in mind.

"I talked to my doctor, uh, 32 weeks pregnant, so its about time to protect me and the babies," she said. True is at the top of the list of people the Mobile County Health Department considers high priority for the vaccine. They also recommend healthcare workers, children under four years old; parents, caregivers and siblings of children less than 6 months old and children 5 to 18 with underlying medical conditions.

"We heard it on the news and called a buddy of mine who was working out here," said Lex Allain. "He encouraged us to do it."

Melissa Tucker with the Health Department said, "We have a little over four thousand doses to give out. If we don't give them all out today, we'll plan another either next week or later this week." Tucker says in the first hour after opening the clinic at 8am, Health Department workers had given almost 900 shots. By noon that number had risen to 14 hundred.

She said there were already people waiting in line early this morning--some just wanting to be first and some worried that they might run out of the vaccine.

"Because you can see the other media in other parts of the world where its just been bombarded with people wanting to get it and not enough vaccine," said Tucker. "So people were here pretty early this morning--it was still dark."

The Health Department also urged first responders and anyone who works closely with the public to get the vaccine.

Kenneth Clay told us, "Well, I work with the public, I work in retail and come into contact with people everyday, so I thought it would be a good idea to do this."

And Linda Meacham added, "I believe in vaccination and I think it will keep me from getting the flu. I'm scared of it, I don't want it."

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worknmom Says:

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 6:50 pm

I wish we had updates more throughout the day to let us know if they still had the vaccines. I wanted to get my boys (who have asthma)vaccinated but could not get there before 4 this afternoon. I figured they would have been out, but if the Health Dept would have given more frequent updates to the media, we could have gone on today. Now, we just have to wait and see and hope we can make it to the next one.