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Schools

Last Year's H1N1 Scare, This Year's Caution

FCPS Teaches Cleanliness, Preparation in Avoiding Outbreak

Though last year's H1N1 scare has died down in Fairfax County Schools, staff are continuing to be vigilant in preventing new outbreaks of disease.

The H1N1 influenza virus is in its "post-pandemic period," according to Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, according to the WHO website. Although cases have dropped, outbreaks are still possible.

Fairfax County was no stranger to H1N1 last year. Its presence had a lasting effect particularly within the Fairfax County Public School system.

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 "H1N1 served as a great learning episode for everyone," said Glen Barbour, the public safety information officer for the Fairfax Health Department. "We were all very fortunate that the H1N1 epidemic turned out less severe [than expected]."

According to Barbour, the Fairfax Health Department and FCPS collaborate whenever any illness becomes prevalent with the schools. Early on, the health department and FCPS worked together to create plans that would help to prevent the spread of H1N1, said Barbour. Specifically, the health department and FCPS worked to educate students, faculty and the administration on proper hygiene practices and emphasize the need for vaccination against H1N1.

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"We knew H1N1 was wide spread in the community," Barbour said. "It was difficult to say this particular school had a bigger outbreak [that another]."

According to the FCPS website, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated 47 million people in the U.S. were infected with the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus between mid-April and Nov. 14, 2009, and 9,800 people died.

Because of its high level of contagiousness, FCPS emphasized cleanliness.

However, according to Doug O'Neil, the coordinator for safety and environmental health for FCPS, the school system's cleaning policies were ready for an outbreak even before H1N1 became an issue.

"The cleaning agents prior to H1N1 were EPA registered for H1N1," said O'Neil, "Our routine cleaning of the schools was already capturing the virus." What it came down to, according to O'Neil, was making sure to clean areas of high contact such as doorknobs and switches, and places like the cafeterias.

According to O'Neil, the outbreak provided "hyperawareness" for hand washing and etiquette when one sneezed or coughed. In FCPS, the emphasis during the outbreak was to promote better hygiene, such as coughing and sneezing into your sleeves rather than into your hands and washing your hands often.

"Once you clean something someone could infect it immediately . . . [so] the real emphasis was hand hygiene, [as] we can't clean everything every 5 minutes," said O'Neil.

This year the call for better hand hygiene stuck in the school system. According to O'Neil, there are currently a number of posters promoting the washing of hands, and other ways to stop the spread of contagious diseases. O'Neil also emphasized that one of the best ways to not contribute to the spreading of an illness is to simply stay home when you're sick.

Both the Fairfax County Health Department and FCPS highly encourage everyone over the age of 6 months to get vaccinated against H1N1 in case of another outbreak.

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