“We are in constant touch with the health district,” said Dr. Robin Battershell, Temple Independent School District superintendent. “What the Bell County Health Department tells us to do, we do.”
Earlier in the month, the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to school districts instructing them to have plans in place to prevent the spread of the H1N1 virus and to protect students, staff and the community.
The H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu, has been shown to affect school-aged children disproportionately, and children are known to be highly likely to transmit flu viruses, especially in school and group settings, according to the letter from the Department of Health and Human Services. Public health experts are concerned that the novel H1N1 virus may persist into the fall, potentially as a more severe strain.
So far, the H1N1 virus has not been especially severe, but the population has no immunity against it, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Bell County Health District announced Monday that there have been 114 confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza in the county.
If a vaccine is developed to combat the H1N1 virus it will not be ready prior to the start of school and the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services are asking that schools be ready for whatever the fall may bring.
Depending on the timing and severity of a potential fall H1N1 wave, interventions could include: extra measures to ensure that commonly touched surfaces are disinfected, strict enforcement of exclusion policies for students and staff with flu-like symptoms or extended school closures. In addition, because schools could be used as vaccine distribution locations, schools should consider how they might accommodate such requests.
Information parents needed from the school district would be sent through School Messenger, which would phone the parents, Battershell said.
The school has emergency plans that take into consideration a number of different scenarios, including using volunteers who would work with students who couldn’t come to school, she said.
“If the schools have to close then they close,” Battershell said.
Any plans for delivery of the vaccine will be determined by when it becomes available and the number of doses the health district is provided, said Cathy Brem, preparedness coordinator of the Bell County Health District. The Department of State Health Services has a plan that the local plan will feed in to.
“Some of the plans do tap into the use of local pharmacies,” Brem said. “It was discussed in the spring when we were talking about delivering antivirals.”
There are too many unknowns to speak definitively to any one strategy of distribution, she said.
