Schools ramp up for flu season
Washing your hands is an important line of defence against H1N1 flu.
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By KELLY MCMANUS
As the school year kicks off next week, local schools are getting ready for flu season and potential flare-ups of H1N1 – human swine flu.
Provincial health officer Perry Kendall announced this week that while kids will be taking viruses with them back to school, closures won’t be a part of the provincial flu plan.
Superintendent of West Van schools Geoff Jopson said keeping schools clean will be the first line of defence.
“The solution here appears not to be school closures but rather education and primary prevention,” Jopson said. “The theme here in West Vancouver will be hand washing, hand washing, hand washing.”
Jopson said West Van schools will provide an abundance hand sanitizer at entrances, and will have custodians focus on keeping doorknobs clean.
“We’ll be asking people to stay home, both staff and children, if they’re ill,” Jopson said. “We’ll be paying a lot of attention to this. It’s a serious issue.”
Bowen Island Community School will follow the district’s battle plan, which includes a distribution outline for the H1N1 vaccine this fall.
Parents will be handed an information pamphlet about the virus on Monday, the school’s principal David Langmuir said.
Six high schools were closed last spring during the first outbreak of human swine flu, but health officer Kendall says those measures were “initiated out of an abundance of caution,” according to a release, adding, “It has since become apparent that the disease caused by this virus is generally mild and does not warrant such severe measures.”
The provincial government says it expects a vaccine for the H1N1 virus to be available in November.
The education ministry has also promised to reveal a pandemic response framework to help school officials with “decision making” and guidance in the event of an outbreak.
Health authorities have reported 773 confirmed cases of human swine flu in B.C.
Forty-two of those were confirmed as severe H1N1 cases by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
Four people have died with the virus. In each case there were underlying medical conditions. Health authorities estimate that regular seasonal influenza causes 400 to 800 deaths every year in the province.
For more information about human swine flu and prevention for families, visit gov.bc.ca/swineflu.
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