School nurses prepare for two kinds of flu this fall
Posted Thursday, September 24, 2009 from Press of Atlantic City

Northfield Community School nurses Ginny Wolf and John Costello say they havetaken extra precautions this year to make sure students wash their hands and cover their mouths when sneezing to avoid spreading seasonal or swine flu.

The room was quiet Thursday at the nurse's office at Northfield Community School. Students do not return until later this week, so the all-too-familiar sounds of children coughing and complaining of head and stomach aches are still absent.

While school nurses always have to be prepared for any health emergencies within a school, this year, they are really on high alert as they prepare for the potential of a double dose of flu cases.

In addition to seasonal flu, the H1N1 influenza virus, also referred to as swine flu, is expected to sicken just as many people as the seasonal flu, and perhaps even more.

With many of the cases affecting young children, school nurses are being considered among the most important health care workers by the state.

"(School nurses) have absolutely stepped up to the bat and asked what they can do," said Heather Howard, commissioner of the state's Department of Health and Senior Services, at a special summit targeted at what schools should do to prepare for the H1N1virus.

The concern for school districts is that a disproportionate number of children are getting sick from the H1N1 virus, far more than with a typical seasonal flu. In a school, children can spread the virus very quickly.

So far, 83 percent of people who have died from the H1N1 virus are between the ages of 5 and 64. The Centers for Disease Controland Prevention reports that more than one in four confirmed or probable cases of swine flu are reported in people between 5 and 24years old.

John Costello and Ginny Wolf, nurses at the Northfield Community School, met with Superintendent Janice Fipp on Thursday to discuss their plan of action.

The nurses were making sure that signs were posted at locations throughout the school reminding students to wash their hands and cover their coughs and sneezes with their sleeves. They also were asking the teachers to make sure that every student will be following the same rules.

"The information is out there for anyone to see," Costello said."But you have to reinforce it at every opportunity that presents itself."

Howard said school nurses are important because they know a lotabout a school's population and who is getting sick. Schools could become an important focal point in the fight to control the H1N1virus from spreading, since the state has talked about thepossibility of turning them into vaccination sites.

Even if they don't become vaccination sites, the nurses still have to take steps to prevent the virus from spreading.

The state is advising that students need to be fever-free without the help of any fever-reducing medication for at least 24hours before returning to school. That means no Tylenol can be used in that 24 hour period, even if its an ingredient in another medicine like cough syrup.

Lessons were learned during the first round of H1N1 cases in the spring. When a student in the Brigantine Public Schools district returned from a trip to Mexico, he came back just as the H1N1 virus was beginning to spread.

"When he stayed home, that's when people got the idea that he had swine flu," said Noreen McGahn, the school nurse at Brigantine North Middle School.

The student ended up having a case of "Montezuma's Revenge," but that didn't stop students and parents at the school from getting concerned.

School districts such as Brigantine are ready to use rapid-fire chains of information through e-mails and telephone calls to let students and their parents know if the school is closing or if cases of H1N1 or another illness is spreading throughout classrooms.

At the schools themselves, students are going to be checked out at the first sign of serious coughs or possible fevers. The nurses have a few different medicines to treat symptoms, including Tylenol to reduce a fever.

The nurses are also working with teachers and the custodial staff to make sure that rooms are sanitized and germs aren't being spread.