Schools should make efforts to separate children ill with H1N1 from their well classmates, the state’s top health official told the Kansas State Board of Education Tuesday.
Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips told the board that schools will need “sick rooms” or designated spots for sick children to wait until they can be taken home.
Schools, too, should provide enough time for everyone — students, faculty and staff — to wash their hands several times a day. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers should be used when washing with soap and water isn’t possible.
School officials should insist that children with H1N1 flu stay home an extra 24 hours after their fever subsides, without the aid of fever-reducing medicine.
Eberhart-Phillips also recommended that schools do away with “perfect attendance” awards and other promotions that encourage “presentee-ism” during the during the H1N1 flu pandemic. Such steps, he said, would help underscore the importance of students taking time to rest and recover before returning to school and potentially infecting their classmates.
“Our goal is to do everything possible to keep schools open,” Eberhart-Phillips said. “Our motto is that well children belong in school and sick children belong at home.”
Depending on the severity of the H1N1 virus and how it changes over the next several months, school officials should consider hosting mass vaccination clinics for students during school hours. No student should be vaccinated without written consent from parents or guardians, he said.
Latest projections show that 20 to 40 percent of Kansans could be infected with the virus in the next two years. The H1N1 virus is particularly common among young people, Eberhart-Phillips said, noting that, so far, roughly 80 percent of Kansas cases involved people younger than age 35.
The H1N1 vaccine, he said, could arrive in Kansas as early as September. Two doses of the vaccine would likely be given about three weeks apart to provide appropriate immunity for the virus.
Eberhart-Phillips said the virus is less likely to infect older adults because they were possibly exposed to a similar flu virus prior to the mid-1950s and may have developed an immunity to the latest strain.
“It’s one good thing about being old,” Eberhart-Phillips said.
Board members and Department of Education staff said they would remain abreast of the latest developments of the pandemic and its impact on schools.
-Sarah Green is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. She can be reached at sgreen@khi.org or at 785-233-5443, ext. 118.