Osage County Herald-Chronicle | Flu breaks out in Burlingame

Jeremy Gaston | Reporter

BURLINGAME—The number of absent students keeps rising at Burlingame Schools, with around 25 percent of the K-12 students reporting flu-like symptoms Tuesday.

School officials identified the outbreak of flu on Aug. 19, just four days after the start of school. By Friday, around 30 students were absent, and the parent of one student had reported to the district that their child had contracted the H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu.

Burlingame Junior/Senior High School Principal Tammy Baird said the suspected case was among the students in grades 7-12.

“It’s not confirmed,” Baird said. “It can only be confirmed by the state health department.”

Anne Gray, director of the Osage County Health Department, commented on the lack of confirmation in a news release issued Tuesday morning by her office, which stated, “It has been verified with Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) that at this time, there are no confirmed cases of H1N1 virus in Osage County.”

Gray said the department is aware of an influenza outbreak in the northern part of the county, but noted it was unlikely that there would be any confirmed H1N1 cases, due to the manner in which samples are processed.

“At this point, they’re not accepting samples from individual providers,” Gray said. “KDHE is only receiving samples from hospitals and safety-net clinics.”

According to Gray, unless someone from Osage County ends up in the hospital, there won’t be any confirmed cases.

“Luckily, treatment is the same as for any influenza: stay at home, drink plenty of liquids, take Tylenol or Ibuprofen for fever, and get lots of rest,” she said in the news release.

H1N1, however, has more of a risk of infection than seasonal flu strains. The risk of outbreak was covered in the Governor’s H1N1 Pandemic Influenza Summit held Monday in Topeka. Three Lakes Cooperative Nurse Christy Markem, Gray, and Burlingame Superintendent Allen Konicek were among 700 attending the summit, which was also broadcast to six additional locations around the state.

The summit featured a federal update from U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, who noted the virus has led to 32 hospitalizations and one death in Kansas, and it is expected that between 20 and 40 percent of the state’s population may contract H1N1 during the next two years.

“During a seasonal flu outbreak, 5-15 percent of the population are affected,” Gray said. “With the H1N1 virus, they believe it could affect 25-45 percent.”

At Burlingame, the district has stepped up methods of prevention, putting liquid disinfectant in every classroom and placing “out of order” signs on water fountains. Bottled water has been made available to students.

“They talk about social distancing, but how do you do that in schools?” Konicek said. “It’s hard to tell kids to be isolated.”

The school has focused on the basics, reducing exposure where possible.

“Everybody’s getting into cleaning and virus protection mode,” Konicek said. “Our janitors disinfected before, but now our teachers are stepping up and are helping wipe down desks. We’re trying to slow it down as much as we can.”

The district encouraged students who may be infected to quarantine themselves, and to wait until they’re healthy to return to school.

“You need to be fever-free for 24 hours before you come back to school,” Konicek said.

The flu has also reached Scranton, which was the source of countless calls to the health department Monday, all with flu-related questions.

“They called all day, non-stop on four lines,” Gray said.

The department plans to begin combating the virus when they receive seasonal flu vaccines next month. Those vaccines will not protect against the H1N1 virus, however, a vaccine that will is expected in October.

“As soon as we receive the H1N1 vaccine, we will be distributing that to the top-priority immunization group,” Gray said. “We have plans in place to go to all the schools and the day care centers to administer the vaccine.”

Those first in line for the vaccine will be pregnant women, caregivers of infants, anyone between 6 months and 24 years of age, health care personnel, and anyone with high-risk medical conditions. All H1N1 vaccines will be administered free of charge, through vaccines at schools and day cares will require parental consent.

“The government is providing the vaccine and supplies for free to stop the disease from spreading,” Gray said.

Until then, the focus remains on prevention, isolation and careful monitoring.

“We tried to be proactive, but now we’re reacting,” Konicek said. “Our hope was that we would be vaccinated before it got here. We figure it’ll run its course.”