Rockwood copes with losing 1,800 doses of H1N1 vaccine

KSDK -- The H1N1 or swine flu epidemic provides a 'teachable moment' for one local school district.

18-hundred refrigerated doses of H1N1 Vaccine were lost in the Rockwood School District when a thermostat malfunctioned.

The malfunction was discovered October 19th.

Sometime over the weekend or early that Monday morning, the temperature in the refrigerated unit spiked at 102 degrees!!

Normally the temperature would be cool..in the 30's or low 40's.

As soon as Rockwood officials found out about the spike, they notified the St. Louis County health department.

Those doses were destroyed.

The thermometer is back to normal but the latest vaccine, received just a few hours ago..is now stored at SSM St/ Clare Health Center in Fenton.

Cranston adds, about one-thousand of Rockwood's 22-thousand students..those who are at high risk..had already been vaccinated.

There's no word yet on a date for the next clinic for the 25-hundred doses received on Friday.