SIXTH-GRADERS TO GET HEPATITIS VACCINATIONS; $100,000 GRANT TO PROVIDE SHOT FOR COUNTY'S LOW-INCOME KIDS.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Sixth-graders, predominantly those whose families who don't have health insurance coverage, will be vaccinated against hepatitis B under a program approved recently by the Saugus school board.

The immunizations are part of a state law that will take effect July 1, requiring all California schoolchildren to get the shots - and present their local school district with documentation to that effect. Only then will youths be allowed to enter the seventh grade.

While most parents will take their sixth-graders to the family pediatrician for the shots, others may not be able to afford the medical expense. A $100,000 grant from Merck Pharmaceutical Co. to the Los Angeles County Office of Education will cover the cost of immunizing about 10 percent of the county's public school sixth-graders.

Merck manufactures the hepatitis B vaccine.

The vaccine is administered in three doses, given in specific intervals over a period of four to six months, said Kathryn Schwabl, manager of the hepatitis B immunization project for the county Office of Education.

The shots will be dispensed sometime after the new year.

Students will receive the shots in the upper arm, and Schwabl described it as ``relatively painless'' procedure. Hepatitis B is a blood-borne virus often spread through intimate sexual contact or by exposure to bodily fluids, she said.

The intent behind the new legislation, which Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law in October 1997, is to protect youths from the viral infection before they become sexually active. Hepatitis B is a disease associated with frequent sexual partners or high-risk occupations like paramedics or doctors, said Schwabl, who also is a registered nurse.

``Hepatitis B is a virus that attacks and destroys the liver. It's not something that you can get from being in the same room with somebody,'' she said. ``Once the disease takes effect on the liver, it's a lifetime of problems. So it's better to prevent it.''

Symptoms of hepatitis B include fever, muscle aches and jaundice, but about half of those infected show no signs of the disease, which has an incubation period of six weeks to six months - during which the person is contagious nonetheless, Schwabl said.

Generations of schoolchildren have been vaccinated against measles, mumps, diphtheria and tuberculosis, but Schwabl said that in recent years hepatitis B immunizations, developed in 1981, also have joined that series of shots given to all babies.

That practice began, however, after this year's sixth-graders had passed through infancy and toddlerhood, Schwabl noted. ``This is a catch-up law,'' she explained.

Children likely won't suffer side effects after receiving the vaccine, other than mild fatigue, elevated temperature, headaches or pain at the injection site - nothing serious enough to alter their routine.

``They could get the vaccine and go back to class, and if they had a soccer practice after school, they could go to it,'' Schwabl said.

``Our mission is to inform people about the law and to make the vaccine available,'' she said.