Swine Flu Hits Aiken County Schools
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Swine Flu Hits Aiken County Schools
The swine flu is spreading...11 cases have been confirmed now in Aiken County schools. Parents say it's scary....educators say it's expected. WJBF News Channel 6?s Joy Howe reports.
The swine flu is spreading…11 cases have been confirmed now in Aiken County schools. Parents say it’s scary….educators say it’s expected. WJBF News Channel 6’s Joy Howe reports.
Aiken County, SC—Monday morning, Erica Duncan got a scary phone call from her daughter’s school.
Erica Duncan, Parent: “It was Monday; I dropped her off, like normal. School calls me around 10:00 and says ‘your child has a 102 degree temp, and you need to come and get her, she’s got flu symptoms.“
Erica took her 9-year-old to the doctor, where she was told, she had swine flu.
Duncan: “She was not vomiting, she had no diarrhea, she had sniffles, a fever, and that was it, maybe a little bit of sneezing.“
District leaders say so far, more than 50 students have been sent home with flu-like symptoms, and of those, 11 have been confirmed to have the h1n1 virus.
School officials say they’ve sent letters home to the parents at each school where there’s been a confirmed case of the virus.
Dr. Christine Harkins, Chair, Aiken County Board of Education: “The school district is taking all the precautions that we know to take, such as checking any child, who feels poorly, or might feel warm to the touch.“
As far as symptoms of the flu, they’re hard to tell from any other virus:
Don Wright, Infection Preventionist, Aiken Regional Medical Centers: “There really isn’t one way or another to tell if you have one flu based on symptoms. The flu tends to cause a more febrile illness, in other words, you tend to have a fever associated with the flu, versus the common cold, and by fever, we’re associating that with the H1N1, a fever about 100 degrees.“
That’s what Erica says she noticed most…how quickly the fever came on.
Duncan: “It was very scary because you hear all over the TV death, hospitalization, they’re not going to make it, and she is actually on her third day of medicine, and she is doing well.“
She wants parents to know her daughter, isn’t deathly ill—she simply has the flu…but she urges them to act quickly, to make the best of what could be a bad situation.
Duncan: “So when you see symptoms, I wouldn’t wait, I would go. I would go to the doctor.“
Doctors tell us that if your child already has a medical condition like diabetes or asthma, they are more at risk for catching any kind of flu.
District leaders say so far, there’s no talk of closing any of the schools for cleaning.
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Reader Reactions
okay, to clear this up for you people one more time, no one is freaking out,since when did asking where a disease is affecting my community constitute freaking out, i merely want to have access to the information that’s out there, it’s always best to be prepared so you know when not to take your child to certain public places other than school if necessary, and that’s a lot easier decision to make if you have the information that should have been given in the first place, you guys can trust the government/media to give you the complete truth if you like but i don’t trust a “rushed” mercury laden vaccine at all so if i can take other precautions i will, its called being a concerned parent, in other words i’ll share something with you apparently your mother didn’t, better safe than sorry, i can’t protect my children from everything but the things i can protect them from i most certainly will, if that’s freaking out for you then oh well that’s my duty as a parent, to keep them from harms way if possible. also if it wasn’t a big deal all the schools/areas affected would have been told, your getting away from the focus here which is safety and prevention with a virus that many people are not familiar with, a virus that can much be much worse if it combines with the regular flu, not putting down a parent for asking a question out of concern, you have to remember a lot of schools are closed just for the regular flu bugs that go around and this has already shown it can be much worse than that if it gets out of hand, which wouldn’t happen so easily if more people were concerned and asked questions, as for taking them to the doctor at the onset of illness, that might be more understandable if this wasn’t a disease that has to run its course as most doctors will tell you. this is viral, this is not a sinus or ear infection you can take an antibiotic for.
In response to the last comment - I am immersed personally in the fight against the flu. I do indeed have a child - but I know what I need to do and freaking out is not one of them! As long as your child is taken to an MD at the onset of the symptoms - and not sent to school or football, soccer, etc to spread it around - they should recover w/o complications. You do realize they can get it in other places. The schools are doing all they can to prevent the spread - but there is only so much you can do - some people are completely asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms and no fever (or low fever. As the mother said in the video - her daughter did not have a fever and seemed fine once arriving but she could have very well spread it even before the fever developed. This is a good lesson for parents to listen to their children even for the everyday minor complaints (my back hurts, I’m tired, my head/stomach hurts). Given the situation - parents need to err on the side of caution and keep the kids home if they think they might be sick - this is the only way to reduce the numbers of cases.
first off-if you had paid attention to the video it listed a school with one child affected, there are 11 other cases throughout the county, i live in a small community where if a child has this at the middle school and has a sibling at the elementary school then this could spread quickly, therefore it would be beneficial to me, being that i have a 9 year old at school and a 3 year old at home, to know if a school in the immediate area has it whether its my school or not. i take it you don’t have any small children to be concerned about or you wouldn’t have made such a condesending comment, the small children are the ones we have to watch, did you go to medical school to know how serious this is? or perhaps someone in your family has dealt with this since your such an expert! or i would bet your one of those people who take your sick kids to the store and infect everyone else b/c you don’t think its a big deal? that’s exactly how this stuff spreads so quickly b/c people like you don’t take it seriously.
First off - if you want to know the school - watch the video!! Also - if your school was affected - you would get a letter (as the article and video stated). There is no reason to freak out - it is just another flu!! Those people that are dying most likely had other health issues! Most of the children are recovering without complications.
why are the names of the schools not listed? as a parent i would like to know now where and what we’re dealing with.
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