Cholesterol

So far this year, the number of patients appears likely to match or exceed the total for last year.

The van costs about $450,000 a year to run.

Program director Janet Rizan said it receives about $125,000 a year in grants to cover its mammogram services.

Regular van stops include the Center for Pan Asian Community Services and a refugee resettlement agency in Stone Mountain, which also draws African-Americans from south DeKalb.

Program coordinator Genia Morse said most people hear about the service through word of mouth.

The van's staff, some of them bilingual, tries to explain where people can go for follow-up care because the program isn't designed to offer ongoing care.

"We really work with people that many times are not familiar with our health care system," said Morse.

"Many times they come to us and they just don't know where to turn." The people who lined up Thursday included a second-grader whose school nurse said she needed a vision screening, a construction worker who wanted to get a tetanus shot and a woman worried about pain in one of her breasts.

As for Celio, she found out that her baby, Celeste, had a virus that was probably close to running its course.

A nurse offered her the name of an over-the-counter medicine she could buy.

The nurse also gave her the name of a clinic with a Spanish-speaking staff that charges on a sliding scal...

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