New Haven Independent

While other towns have closed schools or sent sick students home, New Haven public schools are recording a 90 percent attendance rate, suggesting that H1N1 swine flu has not yet arrived in big numbers, officials said Friday. Officials laid out a plan for what they aim to do if the flu does sweep through town.

City and school officials kicked off a public education plan Friday urging New Haveners to protect themselves from the swine flu epidemic through a new vaccine. The press conference, outside of the Barnard School on Derby Avenue, came complete with new bus billboards (in photo) — but without one key part of the plan, the vaccine.

The city and school district both plan to inoculate people at risk for H1N1 — young children, health care workers, emergency medical technicians, and pregnant women. The problem is that vaccine stocks are low, and city officials do not know when to expect shipment of more H1N1 vaccines.

Meanwhile, the city is urging at-risk people to call their primary care doctor for H1N1 shots. High-risk patients include pregnant women, children younger than six months, health care workers, and those with compromised immune systems.

“We won’t be out of the woods until all the high-risk people get vaccinated (with H1N1 vaccine),” Quinn said.

New Haven has about 13,000 H1N1 vaccine doses, distributed among hospitals and private providers, sand New Haven Public Health director William Quinn.

Quinn said more H1N1 vaccine is on the way, possibly by the end of November. So far there has been only one case of confirmed seasonal flu, he said.

Meanwhile, the health department will vaccinate people against the seasonal flu on Tuesdays at 10 a.m. at 54 Meadow St., until supplies run out. Elderly patients need protection from the seasonal flu, while H1N1 is apparently more risky to youngsters.

Schools Plan Clinics

Swine flu is not a current risk, officials said. If there is an apparent local outbreak education administrators are only going to close schools if so many students and teachers are absent that classes have no educational value, said William Clark, chief operating officer of the New Haven school district.

Clark said high attendance levels suggest that H1N1 swine flu has not yet spread to New Haven in large numbers.

If the school system receives H1N1 vaccine it will distribute the shot in 14 school-based clinics, some of which provide primary care fort students, he said.
“We’ll give it when we get it,” Clark said. “Don’t count on us, but we want to do it,” he said.

Now, students with sore throat and cough are being sent home. The 100-degree-plus fever criterion has been eliminated, Clark said. Testing for flu has been suspended.

Consequently, many students who have been sent home and or treated with anti-virals probably have colds, Clark said.

Hope Flannigan’s first-grade class, dressed for Halloween, demonstrated exactly how to prevent flu from spreading. On cue, they coughed into their elbows and air-washed their hands.

A spate of local H1N1 cases last spring may have slightly boosted New Haven childrens’ immunity, but too few cases were recorded to expect what epidemiologists call “herd” immunity, Quinn said.

The best defenses against flu continue to be frequent hand washing, staying away from people with flu-like symptoms, coughing or sneezing into a sleeve, and staying home when ill with fever, sore throat, aches, pains, and lethargy, said Dr. Chisara Asomugha, New Haven’s community services administrator.

Otherwise, health and education officials recommend checking the following Web sites for up-to-date information:

The New Haven schools “H1N1” flu update.

The state Department of Public Health CT Flu Watch.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC 2009 H1N1 Flu.