From the Times-Picayune Sept. 21:

To prevent a potentially catastrophic outbreak of influenza in crowded hurricane shelters, the state Office of Public Health is giving vaccines to occupants of about 80 shelters around Louisiana.

The shots aren't being offered to the general public at this time because they might not be effective when flu season peaks in January and February, said Dr. Frank Welch, the Office of Public Health's medical director for immunization programs.[...]

About 10,000 shots have been given since the eight-day program started Friday, he said.

In addition to flu shots, people are administering hepatitis A and tetanus shots to ward off infections when people return to their homes, frequently by wading through foul water, and try to clean up.

Even though it is unlikely that people could contract hepatitis A from contaminated water, the vaccine is "a protective measure we can offer,"Welch said.

Childhood vaccines also are available to shelter residents, he said.

Working with the Office of Public Health have been teams from other organizations, Welch said, including the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Public Health Service, Louisiana State University and the Mayo Clinic.

Turns out this guy Welch has a history of being a hardcore thug in using the bio-terrorism meme to leverage attacks on the immune systems and health freedoms of the citizenry. This is unfortunately not an uncommon trait in Louisiana. Here's his bio from the New Orleans alt-weekly Gambit 10 20 03:

Until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Frank Welch was pursuing his Ph.D. in epidemiology. Since that day, however, his dissertation has been on hold. Welch, the medical director of the state Office of Public Health, has been busy preparing a plan for the state and the city of New Orleans in case of bio-terrorist attack. Beginning last summer, Welch directed a statewide effort to vaccinate 1,200 emergency response officials from 85 hospitals against smallpox, one of the most successful efforts of its kind in the nation. "I am incredibly proud," he says. "Louisiana is far ahead of other states in bio-terrorism preparedness." Recently, Welch also led a general immunization effort that quickly vaccinated 12,000 children statewide, a further demonstration, he says, that Louisiana has the capacity to respond to a bio-terrorist threat, pandemic disease outbreak or natural disaster by providing medicine and vaccinations on a mass scale. In addition, the Los Alamos, N.M., native has played a key role in developing and maintaining the state's nationally recognized immunization database, known as the Louisiana Immunization Network for Kids Statewide. Welch -- who has worked for the state Office of Public Health in New Orleans since 1998 when he served as a medical consultant for environmental epidemiology, addressing public health concerns around Superfund sites -- is active with Project Lazarus, a hospice program for AIDS patients; Kent House, which provides temporary housing for people with HIV or AIDS; and the Human Rights Campaign.