Howard County school officials considering school-based FluMist vaccination clinics for elementary-school students would have to pay forthe vaccine.
That?s because a free pilot program provided by MedImmune, a Gaithersburg, Md.-based pharmaceutical company that developed the spray administered through the nose, is no longer available.
The pilot program “was designed to increase the use of the influenza vaccine in school-age children and protect them from the flu,” said Jamie Lacey, director of public relations for the company.
Health officials throughout the state sought to have MedImmune expand the pilot program, which they initially proposed to the company. But the company declined.
The school system is working with the Howard County Health Department to offer the clinics to young children who are the “largest sources of transmission” of the flu, said Dr. Penny Borenstein, health officer for the county health department. Information on the Howard County absenteeism rate during the 2004-05 school year because of the flu was not available.
She said the cost of the vaccine would be $20 per dose, which would double to $40 per person for students age 9 and younger who have never been vaccinated because they would need two doses.
Pam Blackwell, director of the school system?s student services, said the clinics would serve as a proactive response to a possible avian flu pandemic.
In Carroll, the school system?s 21 elementary schools participated in the pilot program, and 44 percent of pupils received the vaccine, said Marge Hoffmaster, supervisor of health services.
About FluMist
FluMist is approved to prevent illness because of influenza A and B viruses in healthy children and adolescents, ages 5 to 17 years, and healthy adults, ages 18 to 49.
? Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
