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LAUSD offers free flu shots to students, families and staff
Flu shots are part of LAUSD's Vaccine for Children program.
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Four schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District offered free flu shots for students, their families, and staff Tuesday.
The ongoing effort is part of the district’s year-round Vaccine for Children program.
“That offers immunizations to low-income or people who have barriers to health care,” said Dr. Kim Uyeda, LAUSD Director of Student Medical Services. “We try to make it as convenient as possible to get this preventive flu shot because, you know, families can’t make it to the clinic. They sometimes don’t know where to go.”
Dr. Uyeda said the clinics are offering alternative flu vaccines so students don’t have to feel squeamish about an injection:
“For most healthy individuals between the ages of two and fifty, they are usually eligible for the spray mist, which goes in the nose.”
A recent pediatric study from USC and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles indicates that school-based vaccination programs have their benefits, including fewer sick children and higher attendance rates. Children who were vaccinated were three times less likely to get the flu compared to schools without the programs, according to the study of 4,500 elementary students in the Los Angeles area.
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