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

Though last year's H1N1 scare has died down in Fairfax schools, staff continue their vigilance in preventing new outbreaks of disease.

The H1N1 influenza virus is in its "post-pandemic period," said Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization on 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.

 "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]."

The health department and FCPS collaborate whenever any illness becomes prevalent within the schools, said Barbour. Early on, they worked together to create plans that would help to prevent the spread of H1N1. These strategies focused on educating students, faculty and the administration on proper hygiene practices and emphasizing the need for H1N1 vaccination.

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

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.

Fairfax schools targeted the virus' high level of contagiousness by emphasizing cleanliness.

However, Doug O'Neil, the FCPS coordinator for safety and environmental health, said 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," he said, "Our routine cleaning of the schools was already capturing the virus."

What it came down to was making sure to clean high contact items such as doorknobs and switches, and places like cafeterias.

O'Neil said the outbreak provided "hyperawareness" for hand-washing and hygiene etiquette. Fairfax schools promoted clean practices such as coughing and sneezing into sleeves rather than into hands and washing hands often.

"Once you clean something someone could infect it immediately . . . [so] the real emphasis was hand hygiene," he said. "We can't clean everything every five minutes."

The call for better hand hygiene remains in the school system this year. There are already a number of posters promoting hand-washing and other ways to stop the spread of contagious diseases.

Fairfax County's health department and schools encourage everyone over the age of 6 months to get vaccinated against H1N1 in case of another outbreak.

And if you or your student gets sick, please, O'Neil said, stay at home.