Flu vaccines are available to all at county health department

It's almost flu season and vaccines have arrived at the Cherokee County Health Department. Nurse Patrica Jones vaccinates Arlyne McNair against the flu virus. Flu shots are available at the Rusk and Jacksonville county health department offices. Cost is $7 for children age six months-17 years and $20 for persons over 17.

Flu vaccines have arrived in Cherokee County. The Cherokee County Texas Health Department will provide flu (influenza) vaccinations for adults and children over sixmonths old from 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays at its clinics located at 593 North Main in Rusk and 510 East Commerce Street in Jacksonville. The vaccination costs $7 for children, over six months to 17; and $20 for persons over age 17. Children younger than six months of age are too young to be vaccinated. Vaccines are given on a first come first served basis. Maps to each location are available at www.cchdtexas.org.

After years of shortages and confusion, this fall promises plenty of flu vaccine to go around - up to 132 million doses, more than the nation has ever produced.The ample supplies have the government urging vaccinations not just for people at highest risk of dying from influenza, but for anyone who wants to avoid a week of aching misery.

"Flu is a formidable foe," Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. "It is not an illness we should be complacent about."

But new CDC data show only a fraction of people who need flu shots the most get them, including just one in five babies and toddlers. And there's wide geographic variation, with Rhode Island reporting the most high-risk adults vaccinated and Nevada the fewest.

Shots aren't the only option. The government ruled that it's safe for younger kids than ever before to try a nasal-spray vaccine called FluMist. Once only an option for people ages five- 49, FluMist now can be used by children as young as two.

Flu usually peaks in February, so a winter vaccination isn't too late. Still, Gerberding advised seeking vaccine early in case flu begins striking before the usual November.Each year's vaccine contains protection against three influenza strains -- two Type A strains, an H1N1 and an H3N2 version, plus a milder Type B -- that experts predict will cause the most illness.The vaccine isn't always a perfect match, and this year's contains a different H3N2 version than the newly emerging one, nicknamed H3N2/Brisbane-like.

Who's at highest risk? Anyone over 50 or under five; people of any age who have asthma, heart disease, weakened immune systems or other chronic illnesses; and pregnant women. Vaccine also is particularly recommended for relatives and caregivers of those people, and health care workers- people who may be robust enough to recover themselves, but could infect the more vulnerable before they realize they're ill.