The New Mexico Department of Health partnered upwith the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine tooffer free flu shots for the publicon Oct. 31.

The event will behappeningata drive-thruclinic locatedat3501 Arrowhead Drive. Flu shots will be availablefor everyone from six months and abovefrom 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. All attendees are required to wear a mask.

According to David Daniels, disease prevention program manager from the New Mexico Department of Health, there is usually one event like this one per year which is organized by them. Daniels said that this kind of event has been going on for at least 10 years.

Due to COVID-19 and the importance of public health, this year they organized three separate drive-thru clinics. The first one was onOct. 17, another oneOct.24and the upcomingand last oneonOct.31. Thedrive through clinicsareusuallyheld onclosest Saturday to Halloween.

Were only going to do Boo to the Flu events for these dates that we had scheduled, but moving forward, we will have flu vaccines available at our public health office, so this is the one mass vaccination event for the year, Daniels said.

The New Mexico Department of Health recommends that everyone gets their flu shot during these timesspecially since COVID-19 is going around.Free vaccinesare availablethanks to government funds.

We realized that ss long as we can demonstrate what we are doing in the event of an emergency, we could get the community vaccinated for free, and thats what Boo to the Flu turned into, Daniels said.

In the event of a COVID-19 vaccine, the New Mexico Department of Health is more than ready to handle the distributionof said vaccineto theNew Mexico community.

Were looking to have our hospital partners that know how to do these events help us do some of this, Daniels said. At the health departmentwe do this already, with COVID testing, we have a similar process down so we could potentially vaccinate for COVID.

Daniels mentioned that the events have been of great success this year. The programeven ran out of shots to give during one ofthe clinics.Theevent held Oct. 17gathered 1,064 people while the one onOct. 24had 1,800attendeesintotal. Danielsencourages everyone who hasnt gotten their flu shot to attend this Saturday.

In the spirit of Halloween,health care providers at the event will be dressed up in costumes. Everyone who attends is encouraged to wear a costume of their own, especially all children attending.

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Burrell College of Medicine and NMDOH to host free Halloween flu shot clinic - The Round Up