We have some good news if you're worried about the swine flu.

The Centers for Disease Control has just expanded the groups who are now eligible for the vaccine.

We were at Luther Midelfort's first seasonal and h1n1 vaccine clinic on Monday and looked into why they expanded the eligibility groups.

When Wendy Reiter saw the H1N1 vaccine was available at Luther on Monday, she jumped at the chance. She says, “Before it was pretty scarce, but now it's starting to become available again.

Wendy has Crones disease -- which means she falls into the chronic medical condition category eligible for the vaccine. She says, “Yea I guess it's always in the back of your mind when you have an underlying condition.”

Barb Cramer is a registered nurse and coordinator of the flu clinic at Luther Midelfort, she says expanding the eligibility requirements to include anyone between six months and 24 years is great. She says, “They are more susceptible to getting the H1N1 than older individuals particularly over the age of 65, probably already have immunity.”

Three hundred people were vaccinated by early afternoon Monday and Barb guesses it'll hit 600 by the end of Monday night’s clinic.

Cramer says clinic attendance was good, “It's going really well and it's been quite busy.”

In addition to those school age children and young adults, Eau Claire County Health Department Director Richard Thoune says obese people fitting into the chronic medical condition are also eligible for the vaccine.

But there is still one group who can't get the vaccine yet, and Cramer has a message for them.
She says, “For those individuals over the age of 65 I think an important message would be they should be patient. Eventually we will get ample vaccine for everyone and if they would like, I suspect we'll have it by the end of December for sure.”

Luther Midelfort's vaccine clinic continues Tuesday and Wednesday both starting at 8 a.m. at the Clairemont Campus location.

The clinics will also run all next week at the Clairemont Campus location from Monday, November 30 through Thursday, December 3, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The target groups for those clinics are:
• Pregnant women
• Families and caregivers of infants aged younger than 6 months (Parents, siblings, daycare providers, etc.)
• Persons ages 6 months through 24 years old
• Persons age 25 through 64 years old with chronic medical conditions (Asthma, diabetes, heart disease, etc.)