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Public Health Department recommending Resolution supporting the IZ Xtreme school based vaccination campaign that aims to protect all 6th and 7th graders in El Dorado County against several serious communicable diseases.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Adopt Resolution 123-2007.
FUNDING: Federal Vaccines for Children Program.
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Fiscal Impact/Change to Net County Cost: There is no fiscal impact or net County cost associated with this agenda item.
Background: IZ Xtreme is a school-based vaccination campaign that aims to protect all 6th and 7th graders in El Dorado County against several serious communicable diseases.
These diseases, which include meningococcal disease, pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, tetanus and cervical cancer due to human papillomavirus, are largely preventable with new vaccines that are now recommended for children in the middle school years. The campaign will also provide the new FluMist nasal spray vaccine to protect against influenza in the coming winter flu season.
The new vaccines are highly effective in preventing disease from the strains of microbial agents they are designed to target. They are also very well-tolerated, with only mild, local reactions reported after tens of thousands of monitored doses, and they can be given simultaneously with no adverse effects and minimal discomfort.
Promotion of IZ Xtreme will begin when school resumes in August. Consent forms and information packets will be sent home by school districts to the parents of all 6th and 7th graders during September. Public health nurses will then provide vaccines to students in their schools during school time in the first two weeks of October.
Parents may choose not to have their children participate in the campaign for any reason. Only those students whose parents sign the consent forms will receive vaccines. The human papillomavirus vaccine will be given only to females. Public Health Nurses will return to the schools twice during the school year to give the second and third doses of this vaccine.
Reason for Recommendation: Immunizing preteens at school is the most effective way to attain maximum vaccine coverage, protecting not only the children who receive vaccines, but all those with whom they have contact at school, at home and in the wider community. The Department's goal is to support El Dorado County schools in their mission of educating students, by keeping absences from preventable diseases to a minimum. Public Health will work with superintendents, principals, and teachers to ensure that vaccination activities in these schools cause as little disruption as possible.
There is no cost to the students or their families for participating in this campaign. The benefits to the children, and to the wider community, are so great that Public Health, together with school districts, want to make these vaccines as widely available as possible. Purchase of the vaccines, whose retail value exceeds $1.6 million for this campaign, is being funded by the federal Vaccines for Children program.
Action to be taken following Board approval: Chair to sign two (2) copies of the attached resolution; Board Clerk's Office to return one signed resolution to Public Health.
Contact: Dan Buffalo
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