Whooping Cough/Tdap: LA SCHOOLS ASK FOR WAIVERS WHILE AWAITING VACCINE

The Associated Press/from the Sacramento Bee | http://bit.ly/rjJTc4

Thursday, Jul. 7, 2011 - 4:37 pm  - LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Unified School District is asking parents to sign waivers allowing students to attend school while the district awaits fresh supplies of whooping cough vaccine.

The district exhausted on Wednesday its supply of 600 doses of the Tdap booster, which a state law is requiring for all seventh through twelfth graders to attend school as of July 1.

LAUSD officials estimate some 250,000 children will need to be vaccinated this summer.

Medical director Kimberly Uyeda tells the Los Angeles Times the district has ordered 8,000 doses of the vaccine under a federal program for low-income students. The county health department is also helping to vaccinate students.

More than half the 8,700 students who reported for school on Tuesday had not been vaccinated or could not prove they had.