Health department offers flu vaccine clinics
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — As flu season begins, health officials are urging people to get their flu shots.
Last season was one of the deadliest the country has seen in at least four decades according to the CDC and officials don’t want a repeat.
The Marion County Health Department is offering flu vaccines at seven walk-in clinics throughout the month of October, in addition to the vaccines offered at your local health department.
The vaccine is $20 and free for children younger than 2.
The clinics will be held on:
Tuesday, Oct. 2
Englewood Church and Daycare
57 N. Rural St.
4-6 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 9
Old Bethel United Methodist Church
7995 E. 21st St.
9-11 a.m.
Southport United Methodist Church
1947 E. Southport Rd.
9 a.m.-noon
Wednesday, Oct. 10
Chin Baptist Church
8528 Madison Ave.
9 a.m.- noon
Tuesday, Oct. 16
Southport Presbyterian Church
7525 McFarland Blvd.
9 a.m. – Noon
Sunday, Oct. 21
St. Gabriel Catholic Church
6000 W. 34th St.
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 25
Cathedral Kitchen
1350 N. Pennsylvania St.
9 -11 a.m.
Health officials give a variety of reasons to get the flu vaccine.
“I am chronically ill and susceptible to the flu,” said Doris Banks.
Janice Johnson added, “I do get it. My doctor recommends it. I’m over 65 so I need it.”
In Indiana, 336 people died from influenza last season. Twenty-five percent of those deaths were of people between the ages of 5 and 64, not in the high-risk age group of 65 and older.
According to Jennifer Case Tardiff, a registered nurse who specializes in infectious diseases at the Marion County Health Department, many people were infected with a strain not included in the vaccine last season.
“It’s a strain of flu that was going around. That particular strain of flu, it was known historically to be a little more virulent,” said Case Tardiff.
She said experts used the previous season’s trends and what other countries are experiencing to determine what strains to include in a vaccine.
Case Tardiff said it’s tough to predict what will happen this season, but she does not expect it to be nearly as severe as the last season.