Swine-flu vaccinations under way in Va.

When responding to a call, paramedic Thomas Barrett, 44, protects himself with a face mask if he encounters a patient coughing and sneezing.

So it was a no-brainer to get vaccinated against the H1N1 swine flu yesterday.

The Richmond Ambulance Authority employee followed registered nurse Jatori Robinson's instructions to sniff after she squirted vaccine up each of his nostrils yesterday.

Across the state, health-care workers are lining up to get the first available doses of the vaccine, a nasal-spray version recommended for healthy people ages 2 to 49.

Nationally, the swine flu is continuing to spread. As of yesterday, 37 states, including Virginia, reported widespread flu activity. Flu cases were even up in some places that had shown declines in recent weeks.

Virginia got its first doses of the vaccine this week.

As of Thursday, 88,200 doses of H1N1 swine-flu vaccine had been made available in Virginia, and more had been ordered.

Health-care workers are a priority group to get vaccinated to protect themselves and to protect the patients they care for.

"I don't want to be a conduit to give it to anybody else," said pediatrician Harry Gewanter, who plans to get vaccinated when more vaccine becomes available. He's had the flu before and doesn't want it again.

"I've been through that once years ago," Gewanter said. "It was horrible. Your hair hurts."

Although the easily-spread virus is causing relatively mild illness in most people, it is being blamed for thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths in the United States.

Federal officials said yesterday that 76 U.S. children, many with other chronic health conditions, have died from swine flu-related illness. In many cases, the patients developed deadly secondary bacterial infections.

Targeted testing of flu samples indicates most of the flu circulating in communities is the H1N1 swine flu.

The injected version of the swine-flu vaccine is expected to be available next week.

Officials plan to target other priority groups, including pregnant women, caregivers of infants under 6 months old who are too young to get vaccinated, and people with underlying health conditions.

In all yesterday, 15 Richmond Ambulance Authority workers were vaccinated, said Bryan McRay, safety and risk manager.

Three were rejected because of age, and two because they had the early signs of a cold.

Vehicle service technician Billy Austin, who dons protective gear to sanitize ambulances in between patient transports, said it made sense to protect himself. The rest of the ambulance workers also will be able to get flu shots at the city health department.

Contact Tammie Smith at (804) 649-6572 or .