A growing number of Howard County schools have reported flu-related absences greater than 10 percent this school year.
The school system has had 27 instances this school year in which a school had a rate of absence that exceeded 10 percent, the level when system officials notify the Health Department.
The school system has closely monitored the absences. At Hollifield Station Elementary, for example, 21 percent of the kindergartners were absent one day last week, but overall less than 10 percent of the school's pupils were absent.
"The schools are telling us if they are seeing it at a certain grade level," said Patti Caplan, a school system spokeswoman.
Neither health nor school officials could provide an official date for when distribution of swine flu vaccine would begin.
"I don't have a time frame or anything at this point," Caplan said. "We haven't gotten to that level of detail."
Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, Howard County's health officer, predicted that H1N1 vaccines would be distributed at the beginning of November.
County health and school officials have been meeting weekly since August to develop a plan to distribute the vaccine once it becomes available.
The Howard County Health Department announced this week that it will suspend its seasonal FluMist clinics because after someone receives the FluMist vaccine, the person cannot take the swine flu vaccine for four weeks. Because Maryland has started to receive the H1N1 vaccine, the state decided that it is essential to administer the vaccine to youth, the most heavily affected in the general population, according to health officials.
There will be more than 100 swine flu vaccine clinics operating in Howard County over the course of the next two months, according to health officials. All Howard County schools will serve as clinics.
Hiring enough staff members for the projected 103 flu vaccine clinics in Howard County, including the schools, is expected to cost about $600,000, according to Beilenson. The money will come from the county Health Department's Public Health Emergency Fund.
