For the first time in 15 years, the Health Department will not be offering free on-campus flu shots to students in Columbia Public Schools.
The loss of the program means that nearly 1 in 5 students in the county will need to look elsewhere for their annual vaccines against the common virus. Last school year, 4,700 students in the county received a free flu shot at a school, according to Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department records.
The decision to end the in-school program came after the Health Department lost $804,000 in federal funding for community health programs. The discontinuation of free in-school flu shots is related to those cuts, Health Department spokesperson Austin Krohn said.
The Health Department is looking for ways to cope with the loss of federal funding without cutting its work force, Krohn said.
“The funding loss made us have to kind of redirect some funds potentially to keep people on staff here,” he said. Flu shots will still be available for those willing and able to visit the Health Department, which is located at 1005 W. Worley St.
School district spokesperson Michelle Baumstark said the district is assessing what to do in response to the loss of the program.
“We do not have a plan at this point, but we will be discussing what options might be available to provide to our staff and to our students,” Baumstark said.
“There’s obviously costs that come with it, and so those will all be things that we will have to discuss as an organization on what we can do,” she added.
The district’s health services page still provides information on the program. One excerpt from the site reads: “The purpose of a school-based clinic is to offer families a convenient method to vaccinate children so they can remain healthy and ready to learn.”
The loss of the free flu shot program comes as Missouri is seeing a slow downward trend in all vaccinations. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ website shows a subtle decrease in vaccination rates in the past five years across both private and public schools.
“It’s a tough environment for public health right now, specifically regarding vaccines and the push to get more people vaccinated. It is quite complicated at the moment,” Krohn said. But Krohn added that the Boone County area’s vaccination rates are still relatively high.
“We’re still really highly saturated here in Boone County though, so we’re not horribly worried yet,” Krohn said. “You can look through the past few years and just see that people are getting less and less vaccines.”
Krohn said the decision to end the in-school flu shot program may not be permanent and can be revisited next year.
“We’re always, always, always looking for funding sources,” he said, “so there’s hope.”
