FAIRBANKS — Local health officials recommend that parents consider getting their child vaccinated for the swine flu virus to help prevent the spread of the pandemic as the flu season nears.

“It is ultimately a personal choice,” said Shelly Foint Anderson, of the Fairbanks Public Health Clinic. “But our goal is to educate the community as best we can and do our best to make the vaccine available,” she said.

To make it easy, the Fairbanks Public Health Clinic is offering free seasonal flu and swine vaccines to children under 21. Those over 21 may also receive the vaccine for a $27 administration fee. If someone is unable to pay the fee, the Public Health Clinic will work with the patient using a sliding fee scale.

“No one is ever denied service for the inability to pay,” Anderson said.

The clinic has been administering the swine flu vaccine since mid-October to those in the five recommended priority groups as it has been available. These groups include pregnant women, people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age, health care and emergency medical personnel, anyone between 6 months and 24 years of age and people from ages 25 through 64 years who have chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.

In the past week, Anderson noted an increase in people asking for both the seasonal and swine flu vaccine. The seasonal flu vaccine and swine flu vaccine are separate vaccines; a seasonal flu vaccine will not prevent swine flu.

“It’s not too late to get the seasonal flu vaccine, either,” Anderson said. “People are beginning to plan for the holidays with travel plans and spending time in airports and larger cities — they’re really thinking about these things.”

Swine flu is not to be mistaken as a seasonal flu, though both are highly contagious.

“Some people have a natural immunity to a seasonal flu, but with a pandemic, like swine flu, no human has the immunity to fight it because it is a new, unidentified virus,” said Maureen Kauleinamoku, Fairbanks school district nursing coordinator.

Public health officials are conducting three shot clinics in Fairbanks schools to provide the swine flu vaccine to local school-age children. The three shot clinics begin Nov. 19 at North Pole Middle School. Two subsequent clinics will be on Nov. 24 at West Valley High School and Dec. 3 at Lathrop High School. All three shot clinics will be held from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Children between the ages of 4-18 do not have to attend a public school in Fairbanks to attend a shot clinic.

Kauleinamoku noted that swine flu has a tendency to show up mostly in younger age groups at any time of year, which is why the school district is offering the vaccine to schoolchildren.

“With swine flu, we’re seeing it more in children, which is not a group typically affected as much” by seasonal flu, she said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that people under age 49 account for 75 percent of swine flu hospitalizations and 60 percent of swine flu deaths in the United States.