Health Center

offers students cheap shots
The University Health Center is offering discount Hepatitis B vaccines to students aged 19 and younger — but supplies are limited.
According to Nurse Coordinator Sharon Harbert, the health center has several hundred doses of the discounted vaccine, available to students younger than 20 years old for $6 per dose.
The health center received the vaccine as part of a state program to vaccinate young people against Hepatitis B, a viral disease that can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. The program was canceled in June 2001, but the center still has vaccines available.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that as many as 1.25 million people are infected with Hepatitis B, and that 80,000 more are infected each year. The disease is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, and the CDC estimates that a many as a third of those infected don’t know it.
Hepatitis B cannot be cured, so health officials recommend vaccination for everyone under 18 years old and those who are at risk.
The vaccine is administered in three doses over a six-month period, and Harbert said the health center’s supply should last long enough for students who start the series now to get two doses. Once the supply is gone, the vaccine goes back to the standard price of $31 per dose.

— Leon Tovey