WASHINGTON - Malia and Sasha Obama were given the H1N1 flu vaccine last week, the White House disclosed Tuesday as a case of H1N1 was confirmed at the private school campus 11-year-old Malia attends.
The girls received the vaccine after it became available to Washington, D.C., school children, a spokeswoman for first lady Michelle Obama said Tuesday.
Both girls are reported to be healthy.
There is a national shortage of the vaccine. President Barack Obama and the first lady have not yet been vaccinated for H1N1, according to the spokeswoman, Katie McCormick Lelyveld. They will wait until the needs of priority groups identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are met, she said.
The girls' H1N1 vaccine was administered by a White House physician, who applied for and received the vaccine from the District of Columbia's Department of Health, using the same process as district vaccination sites, Lelyveld said.
Meanwhile, the Sidwell Friends School told parents Wednesday of a confirmed case of H1N1 in its Upper School. Malia attends Sidwell's Middle School, located in Washington on the same 15-acre campus as the Upper School. She is in the sixth grade.
Sasha Obama, 8, attends Sidwell's Lower School, located in suburban Bethesda, Md. She is in the third grade.
Over the weekend, President Obama declared a national emergency in response to reports that nearly 100 young people have died from H1N1.
Sidwell, a Quaker School with 1,109 students, educates the children of Washington's elite, and its tuition is in the $30,000 range.
The CDC recommends the vaccine "as soon as possible" for select groups including children age 6 months to 18 years old. It points out: "... there have been many cases of H1N1 flu in children and they are in close contact with each other in school and day care settings, which increases the likelihood of disease spread."
The Obamas and their children have received seasonal flu vaccines, according to Lelyveld, who gave the update in the White House blog.
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