The H1N1 influenza flu virus first made headlines late in the winter of 2009 with cases being diagnosed in the United States and Mexico.
The Centers for Disease Control, state and local county health departments and the New York State Education Department began a joint effort to educate the public about the disease and how to reduce exposure to it.

The awareness campaign is especially important to public schools, where the threat to children and adults is quite high.

Livingston County Public Health Director Joan Ellison has been meeting with school superintendents and others over the past several months to track the latest information coming from the CDC about H1N1, to develop plans for reducing exposure and spread of the flu and to prepare a response plan to any potential cases among students and/or staff.

Health care professionals expect that H1N1 will resurface this fall as children and adults return to the close environment of the classroom and it is making headlines in the media.

Ellison said H1N1 flu is different from season flu in that it targets young people and children, where mitigation is difficult because of the close contact and sharing of objects that could potentially spread the virus. According to the CDC, H1N1 can survive on environmental surfaces and can infect a person for two to eight hours after being deposited on the surface.

Ellison said the emphasis is on how to protect others and ourselves from exposure to the flu through routine hand washing, cleaning and cough etiquette. The idea is to hold off the spread of the illness at least until the vaccine becomes available. The best way to do that is through education, she added.

Staff returned to work at Avon Central School last Tuesday and Superintendent of Schools Bruce Amey said school nurses presented information to them about good hygiene and scrupulous hand washing. Hand sanitizers have been installed in all classrooms, Amey said.
Teachers are being encouraged to use their webpages as instructional tools so that students who are sick and out of school can access some class work, as much as they feel up to.

Caledonia-Mumford school staff returns to school on Tuesday, September 8 and Superintendent David V. Dinolfo says H1N1 is on the agenda for his opening day presentation. “The staff will be educated on the most recent updates from the LCHD, the CDC and NYSED about H1N1 and what our response needs to be,” Dinolfo explained.

Ellison says a vaccine is expected to become available this fall but will not be plentiful at first. Clinics will be established throughout the county and may include satellite locations in schools. Target populations, those who are most at risk of contracting the flu, will be vaccinated first.

Those groups include:
• Pregnant women
• People who live with or care for children under the age of six months
• Health care and EMS personnel
• Persons between the ages of six months and 24 years old
• People between the ages of 25 and 64 who are at risk for contracting H1N1 because of chronic health disorders who compromised immune systems.

See complete story in our Sept. 10 print edition.

Tagged as: Avon, Caledonia-Mumford, Livingston County Health Department, school districts