Sixty-three public, private and charter schools on the Big Island will participate in the state's "Stop Flu at School" program this year.

Public health nurses will administer regular seasonal flu vaccines to students age 5 to 13 who have signed up for the shots. Clinics are set to start Oct. 14, with the bulk of them finished by mid-November.

The Health Department and the state Department of Education had to make last-minute schedule changes around furlough Fridays, said Judy Akamine, the Big Island's public health nurse. The furloughs will effectively shut down schools two Fridays in October and November, and three in December, but officials were able to work around the shortage of days without cutting any clinics, Akamine said.

About 80 Hawaii District health workers are gearing up to administer the nasal spray and injections. An unspecified number of volunteers from the state Medical Reserve Corps will also take part in the clinics. Students from the University of Hawaii at Hilo College of Pharmacy will administer vaccines to adults and help register vaccine recipients.

Fifty-eight Big Island schools will take part in separate swine flu clinics set to begin in mid-November and run through December. Kids will be bringing home consent forms for the swine flu clinics later this month.

Children under 10 will need two doses about four weeks apart for maximum effectiveness, State Epidemiologist Sarah Park said. Since only one round of swine flu clinics will be held in schools, younger students will need to get an additional vaccination from their private health care provider, Park said.

"Our real goal is to get at least one dose in, because partial immunity is better than no immunity," Park said.

The first 14,400 doses of swine flu vaccine became available this week for the DOH to order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The doses should arrive sometime next week. This first salvo of vaccines -- which are nasal spray -- are available only to firefighters, emergency service and health care workers. But more vaccines should arrive each week and become widely available by late November to early December, health officials say.

Priority groups include pregnant women, caregivers of children under 6 months, those age 6 months through 24 years, and those 25 through 64 with medical conditions that put them at high risk of complications from the flu. But everyone -- even those who think they have already had the swine flu -- should get vaccinated and will have an opportunity to do so, Park said.

Ninety-four Big Island physicians and community vaccinators have pre-registered with the DOH to assure that they get a supply of the swine flu vaccine. But of those, only 59 providers have signed agreements and put in their orders. Park said the DOH has been sending out notices to the remainder urging them to follow suit.

The DOH closed its pre-registration deadline Sept. 18, but will continue to register providers who have decided they want to administer the swine flu vaccine -- but on a provisional basis, meaning those providers will receive vaccines only as supplies allow.

The DOH did not release a schedule of school clinics, saying the Department of Education has not yet consented to have the information made public.

The regular seasonal flu vaccine is widely available and the DOH urges people to get the vaccination now so they can get the swine flu vaccine later, DOH spokeswoman Janice Okubo said.