You know one of these days it will happen. On the day when you least expect it (and often when it is least convenient) the school nurse will call in form you that your child has “flu like symptoms with a fever” and needs to be picked up. Now what?
The 2009-2010 school year game plan was simple enough: avoid the wide spread school closings that occurred at the end of the 2008-2009 school year when H1N1 first came into our lives. This certainly appeared to be a challenge with 2 influenza strains to contend with, an intensity of flu season predicted to be quite strong, and 55 million students and 7 million staff in 130,000 public and private schools, according to the CDC, to keep healthy.
Reassuringly, the CDC had learned a great deal about H1N1 since it first arrived on the scene, and recognized that we can manage the upcoming flu season as we always have but use last year’s aggressive plan if the situation ends up becoming much more intense in any way from anticipated. To this end, the CDC prepared two tiers of guidelines for schools and health professionals to follow which will come into play as the 2009-2010 school year progress and as the flu season develops with enough details to know which guidelines make the most sense to follow: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/schools/schoolguidance.htm
The highlights for the expected flu season include:
1. Keep sick people home until fever free for 24 hours.
2. Separate sick students and staff from healthy if someone becomes sick at school.
3. Wash hands, cough into your elbows, blow noses into tissue!
4. Clean, clean, clean all public areas frequently.
5. High risk folks need early treatment with anti-viral medications.
6. “Selective school dismissals” only.
If the flu season becomes a whopper, the CDC suggests that
1. Screening of influenza virus should start.
2. High risk folks should consider staying home until the situation is more under control.
3. Contacts of people stay home for 5 days.
4. Schools need a plan for this: homework to kids, separate kids while at school more.
5. People with the flu stay home for 7 days.
6. School dismissals become considered in consultation with local CDC chapters.
Your pediatrician is the best person to help you decide what family members are “high risk” so you can be prepared to know that ahead of time. Keep in mind, though, that all kids are considered “high risk” in that they are the ones at most risk for becoming the sickest from either flu strand. So please immunize all your kids ages 6months to 18 years against both the H1N1 and seasonal flu. If you don’t, you may very well find it’s your child that ends up in the ER…or worse.
Arming yourself with the latest information today is what will give you peace of mind tomorrow. So, check back often for the latest information and as the flu season unfolds we’ll regroup and adjust as needed to keep ourselves and our kids as healthy as possible.
(Originally posted October 2009; Updated December 2009)
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