The first phase of A/H1N1 immunizations in New York City schools got underway Wednesday morning.

This marks the beginning of a three-phase initiative to vaccinate the city's school-age population against A/H1N1 influenza.

The first phase includes 125 public elementary schools with enrollments of less than 400.

"Starting the week after this, we will have the weekend clinics on Saturdays and Sundays, totally 58 those clinics we prepared for several weeks," said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas A. Farley.

"That is (an) opportunity for children in middle and high schools to receive the vaccination," he said.

New York health officials said there would soon be enough doses of the vaccine to go around.

"We have 30 percent parents signed in permission and more coming in," said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda I. Gibbs. "It is a volunteer program and part of the challenge is all of the organizations to have to fill out the forms and get them in. Thirty percent is a very good rate."

Officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have said that more than 22 million doses of the vaccine are now available.

"Eventually, there will be enough vaccine for all who want to be vaccinated to get vaccinated," said CDC Director Thomas Frieden. "We wish we had more vaccine available now, we wish it had been available weeks or even months earlier but we are beginning to get to a significant increase in the availability."

The second phase of immunizations at city schools will begin on November 4 and the third will begin on November 9.

The United States received about 9 million more doses of A/H1N1 vaccine from drug makers last week, bringing the total available for distribution to 23.2 million.

US President Barack Obama declared A/H1N1 flu a national emergency on Saturday. The disease is spreading across the country and caused 411 confirmed deaths and over 8,200 hospitalizations from August 30 to October 17, the CDC said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2009)