Mutations, School Closures…and More
There were several reports this week that really concerned me and I would like to comment on them today.
Professor David Price, professor of primary care respiratory medicine at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland) and a Government advisor on respiratory disease, backed the Department of Health trategy of widespread antiviral use but said swine flu would be better managed through school closures.
Professor Price told Pulse: ‘If we really want to reduce use of Tamiflu, we need to look at better public health measures for reducing the spread of swine flu. It is very noticeable that rates of the illness in the UK have begun to drop now children are off school on their summer holidays.
‘There is no greater way of facilitating the spread of swine flu than allowing children to mix in schools. If we had a vaccine it would be a different matter, but given we don’t yet, it would in my view be foolhardy to allow children back to school. It’s a discussion that needs to be had.’
The United Kingdom has seen many deaths and much illness this summer due to H1N1, which is really of great concern, as everyone expected the number of cases in the Northern Hemisphere to disappear during the summer months. This did not happen, especially in England.
The CDC this past week told school district to keep schools open and provide a room where children and teachers could be taken when they become ill. The advice here seems to be exactly the opposite, keep kids home. The reason the CDC gave for keeping schools open was because of the difficulty parents will have with child care, which will interrupt lives. I have thought about that a lot this week and this seem to me a really naive, at best, and dangerous, at worst, attitude. If I think about this too long I become very angry so I will just state again that YOU will have to make the call this fall as to whether or not you will send your child to school.
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4123426&c=1
Bi County Health Educator (Illinois)Whitney Mehaffy says: They’re suggesting now at least 24 hours after there’s no fever. And that’s when you’re not taking any Tylenol or ibuprofen.”
The CDC has also changed it’s guidelines for returning to work or school. They have been saying 7 days or 24 hours after symptoms have passed. Now, they are saying only 24 hour after symptoms have passed. This article points out the danger in this statement. Medications can reduce fever as well as aches and pains, leading you to believe the symptoms have gone when in reality they have only been masked, and the patient can still be contagious. Even if you keep your child home until you are sure the symptoms are really gone what will others do?
http://www.wsiltv.com/p/news_details.php?newsID=8044&type=top
Scientists in Brazil have identified a new strand of the killer disease (H1N1) in a patient in Sao Paulo.
The mutated form has been named A/Sao Paolo/1454/H1N1 by bacteriologists at the Adolfo Lutz Institute after experts compared the mutated virus with samples of the original swine flu from California.
Scientist Terezinha Maria de Pavia discovered that the mutation had occurred in a haemoglobin protein.
It is not yet known if the mutation is more deadly than the A/H1N1 strand which has already been declared a pandemic by the WHO.
We have known the H1N1 was likely to mutate and now we have evidence that, in fact, it has. There are really three questions to answer here. Is the mutated virus more dangerous than the original? How easily can the mutated form be transmitted to other humans? Also, does this mean the strain is becoming stronger, making mutations easier. We need to remember that this is an evolving situation and no one really knows where or when it will end.
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/06/17/swine-flu-new-fears/killer-h1n1-virus-has-already-mutated.html
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1e94a620-9b4c-4efc-be6d-551161eea4d0)
I was concerned about this when I read a few weeks ago that when H1N1 comes back this fall, a local school sees it as their “job and our goal as a school district to keep schools open at all costs.” That really scares me–as you said, it will be up to us as parents to make the call of WHEN to keep the kids home. I wish they could understand the power of a quarantine when necessary! Quoted July 27th, 2009 from http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7313806
I think this is a difficult, difficult issue to address. Since no one really knows what is happening, and it’s easy to overreact as well as underreact, I’m not sure we can just assume parents will know what to do.
To be honest, I think there is some value in realizing that not all reports that schools won’t be closed because of x, y, or z are necessarily a reflection of schools everywhere. I saw schools in my area closing when needed, and they realized after some time that it wasn’t making a lot of difference. If we had all stopped life this first time around with H1N1, we would have missed a lot of life.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be cautious, but I’m not sure a few reports like these above are enough of a reason for parents to keep kids home, either. I also don’t know at what point to challenge the system, because it’s just so easy to be paranoid as a parent, and there are people paid to watch these things closely, who probably know a lot more than I.
FWIW, as an LDS person, I also watch the Church’s response closely. If they aren’t willing to shut down, I take that seriously as well. Not that the Church can’t make mistakes either, but honestly, my instinct was to shut down this spring, and I realize that would have been the wrong thing to do. There has to be balance with all of this. I don’t know where that line is, though. It’s hard because like you said, no one really knows, and this could last a while, and I don’t know if we are at a point w/ this flu yet to require large-scale quarantines.