Area schools report swine flu

Schools in Hanover and King William counties are dealing with clusters of cases of flulike illness while health officials map out plans to vaccinate thousands of children.

"We are having some illness here," said Mark Russell Jones, superintendent of King William schools.

He said administrators are aware of about 10 students absent because of flulike illness at the county primary school, which has about 600 students.

Similar to the outbreaks that popped up at college campuses as students returned to classes, K-12 schools are getting hit now with the H1N1 swine flu. Flu activity in Virginia this week jumped to widespread, the highest level, up from regional last week.

Dr. Brooke Rossheim, acting Chickahominy Health District director, said there's a cluster of cases at Battlefield Park Elementary School in Hanover.

"We have about 10 in one grade and smaller numbers in other grades," said Rossheim, who added that parents had been notified about the illnesses at the school.

Because most of the flu circulating in the community is the H1N1 swine flu, it's assumed that is what is making students sick.

Rapid flu tests available at doctors' offices can determine whether a case is the flu but can't determine specifically if it's swine flu. Public-health officials are reserving lab-based testing for hospitalized cases and for spot testing to track trends and to monitor the virus for any changes that could make it more virulent.

So far, the virus is causing relatively mild illness in most people, but it is causing a disproportionate number of hospitalizations in children.

The swine flu surfaced in the U.S. in April, and production of a vaccine began too late to be included as part of the seasonal flu vaccine, which is available now.

Once H1N1 vaccine becomes available and permission slips are received, teams of four to six school nurses will start giving flu shots in Richmond public schools, said Dr. Danny Avula, Richmond Health District deputy director.

"We have requested 9,000 H1N1 vaccines for Richmond public schools," Avula said.

"They are still working out the details of whether they are going to bus people to the already established school health centers at George Wythe and [Martin Luther King] or, if there are enough students at a particular school who have permission forms at the same time, the team of nurses will just go to them and vaccinate," Avula said.

Dr. William Nelson, Chesterfield Health District director and acting health director for the Henrico Health District, emphasized that the flu shots will be "absolutely voluntary." Neither county was reporting any clusters of cases as of yesterday, officials said.

"Many of the pediatricians and family-practice doctors have signed up, so people may be able to get it from their doctors," Nelson said. "So that is an option. They don't have to get it if they don't want it. It's not required."

The Virginia Department of Health has pre-registered more than 2,700 providers interested in providing H1N1 swine-flu vaccine.

Federal officials said yesterday that at least 3.4 million doses of an inhalable vaccine against the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus will be available at the beginning of October, and about 20 million doses per week should become available as injectable vaccine soon after that.

Outbreaks at colleges are still occurring, according to tracking being done by the American College Health Association. Data on the association's Web site reported 196 new cases at Virginia schools for the week ending Sept. 11, up from 44 new cases the previous week.

The University of Richmond, which this month had a surge of flulike illness cases, sent an e-mail to students yesterday noting that since Aug. 24, 90 students had been diagnosed.

The University of Virginia's student health center Web site reported 176 cases of flulike illness since Aug. 22.

The state health and education departments are establishing a statewide K-12 school absentee reporting system to track illness.