The full parking lot and the long line of residents that snaked around the community center at Rancho Santa Susana Community Park were clear proof of the success of last week’s H1N1 vaccine clinic in Simi.

The one-day clinic on Nov. 12 was put on by the Ventura County Health Care Agency’s Public Health Department, and residents from throughout the county came in droves to get the vaccine that would shield them from the swine flu.

The event was open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and over the course of 10 hours nurses administered the vaccine to all those who qualified: a total of 2,784 people.

Two of those people were Alan and Janet Fink of Westlake Village. The couple came because Alan is a dentist and Janet often babysits her 6-month-old granddaughter.

Alan Fink, 64, said he always gets the seasonal flu shot and felt that getting this vaccine was just as important since he sees patients every day.

Though there’s been some controversy in the media over the dangers of the new vaccine, Fink said he’s in favor of getting it to keep the disease from spreading.

“It’s a personal decision. You have to weigh the negatives with the positives, and the positives outweighed the negatives for us,” he said.

The line outside the clinic, which at peak times took about an hour to get through, was full of families with young children, which pleased Barry Fisher, director of Ventura County Public Health.

“Kids are essentially the target population, so it’s great to see a lot of kids,” he said, scanning the crowd.

Simi resident Dan Case came with his two sons, Dane, 15, and Kanen, 11. After hearing on the news about people dying from swine flu, Case felt there was no reason not to get the vaccine, especially since it’s free.

“The last thing you want is having your child really sick and expire before you,” the 43-year-old said. “And their grandfather has a compromised immune system, so (we do) whatever we can to make sure Grandpa doesn’t get sick.”

The vaccine was given to those Ventura County residents currently on the list of high-risk individuals. This includes pregnant women, children and young adults from 6 months to 24 years of age, caretakers and household contacts of infants under 6 months old, and adults ages 25 through 64 who have high-risk medical conditions.

These conditions include asthma, emphysema, cystic fibrosis and other lung diseases; heart disease, diabetes, morbid obesity, neurocognitive disease, neuromuscular disease and suppressed immunity due to things such as cancer, chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant, steroids and HIV/ AIDS.

According to Public Health officials, people who don’t fall into any of these categories have a low risk for serious illness from the H1N1 virus.

Kim Kandarian, a nurse practitioner with Public Health, said the elderly do not qualify as highrisk because H1N1 has primarily affected a younger population than the seasonal flu. Pregnant women have also had a high death rate from swine flu, she said.

“We need to make sure the most vulnerable population is protected first,” Kandarian said.

Those people who are healthy, not pregnant, and 2 to 49 years old receive FluMist, which is a nasal spray. All others are given the injectable vaccine. While both are effective, the main difference between the two is that the spray is an activated, or “live,” virus, and the shot is an inactivated virus.

“If you give (FluMist) to a healthy person, their chances of not getting (swine flu) is pretty good,” said Jayne Phelan, a family nurse practitioner with Public Health.

Other than a sore arm from the injection, she said, no adverse reactions to either form of vaccine have come to her attention.

At last week’s clinic, 1,715 people received FluMist while 1,069 were given an injection.

Jennifer Myrick and her two sons, Dillon, 10, and Devin, 12, received the injectable vaccine since Myrick and Devin have asthma.

After several students in Dillon’s fifth-grade class were out sick recently, she wanted to make sure her kids were protected.

“It’s circling the schools like mad,” said Myrick, 40. “Hearing the talk (about swine flu), it does get on your nerves; you are worried.”

Christine Merritt and her daughters came for much the same reason. Kaitlin, 14, and Kimberly, 9, were nervous about getting the FluMist, and their mother tried to reassure them that it wasn’t that bad. She received the spray last month since she runs a child day care.

“I don’t want the girls bringing it home from school to the small children I watch,” the 33year-old Simi resident said. “I was glad they were offering this and it was close to home and they were doing long hours.”

Four public clinics in the county are focusing exclusively on administering H1N1 vaccines. In order to serve more people, the clinics—in South Oxnard, North Oxnard, Ventura and Simi—have expanded their hours to be open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. In the last couple of weeks these clinics combined have seen more than 1,000 people a day, Fisher said.

The next step in preventing the spread of H1N1 is taking vaccine clinics to schools throughout the county, Fisher said. Public Health held a clinic last night in Fillmore at Mountain Vista Elementary School.

For more information, visit www.vchca.org.

Ventura County Health Care Agency provides H1N1 vaccinations at Public Health clinics throughout the county. Temporary hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Simi Valley
660 E. Los Angeles Ave., Ste. B-2
South Oxnard
2500 S. C St., Ste. D
North Oxnard
2240 E. Gonzales Road, Ste. 140
Ventura
3147 Loma Vista Road