enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Amanda Rowe, school nurse supervisor in Portland, sorts through supplies for seasonal and H1N1 flu shot clinics at Hall Elementary School.

Maine's schoolchildren will be the next generation of doctors, teachers, builders and business owners.

Today, however, thay are major transmitters of influenza, coming to school each day and fanning out each night, spreading germs they pick up in the classroom, on the playground or in the cafeteria.

As classes resume this week across Maine, health and education officials are developing plans to vaccinate and educate students and teachers in anticipation of an expected spike in H1N1, or swine flu, and its more common cousin, seasonal flu.

"Schools are a transmission hub in any community," said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. "If you vaccinate kids first, you're going to cut the transmission rate dramatically."

Planning to ward off a flu outbreak is already under way in public school districts throughout Maine, including Portland, Biddeford and Brunswick. Private schools and colleges are taking similar steps.

Using federal stimulus money, the Maine CDC has purchased more than 200,000 doses of the seasonal flu vaccine, enough to provide free vaccinations for all of Maine's schoolchildren early this fall, Mills said.

Later this fall, when the federal government provides free vaccine for the H1N1 virus, districts are expected to follow up with a second round of clinics.

Health officials have a goal of vaccinating everyone in the nation for H1N1, making the school program part of the largest vaccination effort in U.S. history, Mills said. Polio vaccinations in the 1950s targeted children, and the swine flu vaccination in the 1970s targeted senior citizens, she said.

The H1N1 vaccine will first be administered to pregnant women, children and health care workers because those groups have been most affected by the disease, Mills said. The remainder of Maine's 1.3 million residents will be offered the vaccine as it becomes available.

"It appears that people over age 64 have some immunity to the virus," Mills said. In contrast, young people with asthma, diabetes, food allergies and other common health concerns may be particularly vulnerable.

Mills described H1N1 as a mild to moderate pandemic – although it has spread worldwide, most people are getting a mild form of the disease. A total of 8,843 hospitalizations and 556 deaths associated with H1N1 have been reported this year to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Portland, home of Maine's largest school district, school nurses and local health agencies are prepared to vaccinate 6,900 students in kindergarten through high school and 1,200 employees.

The district's 11 school nurses will need help to run flu clinics in the city's 16 public schools, said Amanda Rowe, Portland's school nurse supervisor.

Maine Medical Center, Martin's Point Health Care, Portland Public Health, the Family Medical Clinic and the University of Southern Maine have agreed to dedicate 150 people to the task.

"We're really hoping to vaccinate 40 percent of our students," Rowe said, mindful that some parents will choose to have their children vaccinated by their primary care physician, at another clinic or not at all.

"We're certainly hoping that every child will get a flu shot," she said.

In November, the Portland district will offer seasonal flu shots to its employees in a series of after-school clinics at Portland Arts and Technology High School, said Scott Wyman, Portland's benefits manager. Clinics for the H1N1 vaccine will be offered later.

Several Maine health insurance companies have agreed to cover H1N1 vaccinations for their policyholders, including Portland school employees.

"People need to realize that when they get a flu shot, they're not only protecting themselves, they're also protecting everyone else," Rowe said.

Elsewhere in Maine, Parkview Adventist Medical Center and Mid Coast Hospital,...