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Laura Ungar
Courier-Journal.com
December 2, 2009

Three Shelby Elementary School fifth-graders were taken to Kosair Children’s Hospital on Wednesday after getting H1N1 shots during a school-based clinic.

At around 10:30 a.m., one child complained of feeling light-headed and dizzy, another complained of a headache, and a third, who had asthma, began hyperventilating, said Principal Patti Cosby.

“These happened right after each other,” Cosby said, adding that while the episodes were “nothing major,” officials decided to send the children by ambulance to the hospital as a precaution.

At Kosair, they were evaluated and released, said Dr. Adewale Troutman, director of the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health & Wellness, which is sponsoring the clinics at public and private schools in Louisville.

“The vaccine is not the issue,” Troutman said, adding that feeling faint and fainting are side effects of shots in general. “Some kids do pass out.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed some people may faint after getting any shot or may experience swelling at the injection site, but also said H1N1 flu shots can sometimes cause serious problems like allergic reactions — although these are rare. The CDC warns that people who are allergic to eggs shouldn’t get the shots because they are manufactured using eggs.

Troutman added that it’s not surprising that a few children had slight problems given how many children have been vaccinated in the school-based clinics — about 3,000 a day for three days.

Cosby said the incident delayed the clinic slightly at the school off Ziegler Street, which has 651 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

“We were thrown off a little bit,” she said. “They’ll have to come back another day” — although the date hasn’t been set.

Officials said there are precautions in place at the schools in case of problems. There are nurses giving the vaccinations from the health department and Norton Healthcare, and emergency kits at each school.

After Wednesday’s incident, Troutman said his staff notified other schools with upcoming clinics about making sure to have children sit on the floor for several minutes after being vaccinated to reduce the possibility of such problems.