What Teachers Should Do about Swine Flu

May 6th, 2009 By: Diane Trim in Articles, Teachers' Corner

Late last month, New York school nurse Mary Pappas sent 102 students home sick on a Thursday and 80 more home the following day. Pappas recognized early that the illness students in her Queens high school had wasn’t the common cold, so she called New York City Health department. The supervising doctor put Pappas in touch with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. St. Francis Preparatory School closed for a week after health officials confirmed the illness was the swine flu (H1N1 virus).

Pappas’ quick thinking and crisis control shows that schools need qualified school nurses to care for children. But classroom teachers also need enough knowledge to recognize an ill student and to prevent the spread of viruses in the classroom.

As of May 4, the virus has affected 36 states with 279 confirmed cases and one death. CDC Acting Director Dr. Richard Besser said that the numbers are probably an underestimate of the extent of the swine flu’s impact on the nation, where teens have made up the majority of cases. The median age for swine flu cases is 16 and 62 percent of all confirmed cases are for people under 18.

Signs of illness. Executive Director of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN), Amy Garcia, R.N., M.S.N. wrote in an e-mail that teachers should send students to the school nurse only when the student’s illness is interfering with learning.

Teachers should watch for students with a fever, sore throat, and cough, she said. “Persons with the H1N1 flu may also experience lethargy, headache, nausea and vomiting.”

Besser recommended in a press conference that teachers do a visual check of students in the room. “Look around that room and see, are any of these kids looking sick?” he said. “If they are, send them home until it’s certain whether or not they’re sick.”

Stopping the spread. The swine flu’s incubation period is two – five days, which means that a student might be carrying the virus, but not showing symptoms.

Garcia said that teachers should encourage hand washing with warm soap and water for 20 seconds and ask students to cover their coughs with a tissue or sleeve.

Besser agrees. “We need to use schools as a way of really teaching the importance of hand washing and covering your cough,” he said. “These are things that schools can do.”

It’s common sense, Garcia said. Hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes, and staying home when you are sick are common but effective prevention measures. “It is important to be vaccinated for the flu every year, and for pneumococcal disease as your physician recommends,” she said.

The CDC’s Web site also recommends that people avoid touching their eyes, nose, or mouth. The site also advises people to stay away from sick people.

If you or your child gets sick. Stay home. That’s why the CDC is recommending that schools close. They want folks who are ill to stay home, get better, and not spread the virus. The CDC recommends that people with a flu-like illness stay home for seven days after the symptoms begin and not return to school until they’ve been symptom-free for 24 hours – whichever is longer.

Garcia recommends that you visit your physician if you suspect you or your child is sick. The CDC recommends seeing a physician immediately if you or your child are having trouble breathing, are not drinking, are having pain in the chest or abdomen, are experiencing severe or persistent vomiting, or are confused or dizzy.

School closings. The CDC has also been recommending school dismissal and childcare closure when a swine flu viral infection has been indicated. On Tuesday, May 4, 726 of the nation’s more than 100,000 schools were closed, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

“When you think about closure of schools, there are a couple of things you’re trying to do,” Besser said. “One is to protect children from getting this flu from each other and the other is trying to prevent children being amplifiers in the community. Children tend to share infectious diseases with each other, and then they go in the community and they tend to multiply this in their communities.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s Web site notes that the number of schools that have closed is relatively small, but a school closing is a significant disruption for individual parents and students.

“As a pediatrician and as a parent, I know the place where I want kids is in the school learning,” Besser said. “But you want to make sure they’re doing that in a way that their health is protected.”

The good news is that the CDC’s response to the swine flu has been very aggressive and the spread has been similar to that of seasonal flu. “You may only get one chance to get out in front of a new infectious disease, and so, that’s what we’ve been doing all along,” Besser said.

Tags: flu