For children, influenza is nothing to sneeze about, according to state health officials.

As part of a statewide program to reduce the number of cases this flu season, the Scotland County Health Department administered flu vaccines to all fourth through eighth graders in the county, said Tina Clark, communicable disease supervisor for the local health agency.

"Over the past two weeks, we went to every school that had fourth through eighth graders. We coordinated with school health nurses to get permission slips for the school health nurses."

The vaccination program was pushed by the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

"What they were hoping to do is give school aged children vaccinated in the school system."

Clark recommends that as many people as possible receive the vaccination. She said the health department can only serve children, however.

"We are out of seasonal flu vaccines for adults. We ran out [Thursday], but we do have the vaccines for children"

She said vaccines are available for children, free of charge, at the health department.

Clark says there are two kinds of flu vaccines, an injectable vaccine for children aged 6 months to 18 years and a flu mist that is for children ages 2 to 18 years.

She said both are just as effective, however, fewer people can use the mist.

"The flu mist has to be given to healthy children without anything that will compromise their immune system"

She gave diabetes as an example.

Clark said this is the first time giving flu shots in schools, though other inoculations have been given in schools in the past, such as hepatitis B.

The flu shots were for the seasonal flu and not for the H1N1 virus, also known as the Swine Flu, Clark said.

She said information would likely be released next week on local vaccinations for H1N1, including who is eligible for the vaccine.