Phila. schools gearing up for flu season

This article was published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on Fri, Sep. 4, 2009.

As families scramble to get ready for the first day of school, they may not be thinking about the coming flu season, but after last year's H1N1 outbreak, city officials have one message for Philadelphia parents: Keep your sick kids at home!

"If a parent sees the symptoms . . . please keep your child home until such time as these symptoms go away," Tomás Hanna, the chief of school operations, said during a media briefing yesterday with city Public Health Department officials.

On Tuesday, letters will be sent to parents explaining H1N1 prevention techniques and why it is important that children with flu symptoms don't go to school.

"We are asking young people and adults to be proactive about hygiene," said Donald Schwarz, the deputy mayor of health.

The district said that if a teacher spots a child with flulike symptoms, that child may be excluded from the classroom and sent to the nurse.

To prevent the spread of germs through hand to surface contact, schools will be equipped with hand-sanitizer dispensers.

The city said more than half of all confirmed cases of H1N1 type A in Philadelphia occurred in people between the ages of 5 and 19. The school district expects 163,000 students and 20,000 employees.

Starting around mid-October, the city expects to receive 1.2 million units of the H1N1 vaccine to deliver to health-care facilities and schools. Officials said the city was waiting for guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before making plans for how the vaccination will be distributed or if certain populations will get priority.

The Health Department is asking that parents take their children to their doctor to receive the vaccination, though it will also be available at schools for free.

"We expect that we will be able to deliver adequate amounts of the vaccine," said Schwarz.
In the event of an outbreak, schools will be closed only as "a last resort," Hanna said.

Factors that might affect that decision include evidence that the virus is being transmitted "rapidly and efficiently," that a particular school has a higher risk for transmission of the virus, or that a stronger strain of the virus is emerging, according to the Health Department.

Approximately 293 school nurses were trained in swine-flu prevention during their annual School Nurses' Professional Development Day at Murrell Dobbins High School in North Philadelphia yesterday.

"They understand they are the frontline players in this," Hanna said.