10/29/2009 5:02:00 PM Swine flu on the rise at Camp Verde school district
Vaccinations for H1N1 virus are due in November.
Oct. 31 H1N1 vaccination clinics canceled
Because H1N1 flu vaccine shipments have not arrived on schedule, Yavapai County Community Health Services (YCCHS) has had to make the difficult decision to cancel the Saturday (Oct. 31) H1N1 flu shot clinics due to inadequate supply of vaccine. The Saturday clinics were scheduled to be held at the YCCHS locations on Commerce Drive in Prescott and at the Cottonwood County Complex on Sixth Street.
Depending on the availability of vaccine, future Saturday clinics will still be held as scheduled. However, due to the uncertainty of H1N1 flu vaccine production, people are encouraged to check www.yavapaihealth.com or call (928) 442-5613 in Prescott or 639-8139 in the Verde area before any clinic to assure vaccine availability.
There has been an increase in the number of diagnosed cases of the H1N1 virus at Camp Verde Unified School District. School Nurse Donna Metzler said she will send out new notices to parents.
Metzler said it is a courtesy letter letting them know cases are up, the proper precautions to take and letting them know they can choose to keep their children at home.
In the opinion of at least one parent, such notices are too little too late. Dale Calvert's 5-year-old daughter Brooke just went through a frightening bout with the virus. Calvert claimed a student with the flu was in Brooke's kindergarten class, but parents were not told.
"It's not fair she has to suffer because they are too lazy to send out a flyer," he said.
This is the second round of illness for the Calverts, and they at first thought Brooke just had the stomach flu. Hit hard by the economy, they do not have health insurance to pay for tests, which can cost hundreds of dollars. When Brooke's temperature hit 105, they took her to the emergency room, where they received the diagnosis of H1N1.
It has gone through all four members of the Calvert clan. It was so rough on Brooke, they feared for her life.
"It's hard," Dale Calvert said. "You cough so hard your ribs are literally sore. But my daughter coughed so hard she was throwing up."
Metzler said that while she does not have a report yet from the high school, the number of cases is up at the elementary and middle schools.
She is following the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Yavapai County Community Health Services in keeping parents notified. She also keeps the superintendent and principals up to date on the situation.
The district students are scheduled to have H1N1 vaccinations on Nov. 10.
Superintendent Dan Brown said the district follows the guidance of the county both in regards to the regular notifications and closure. The tipping point, he said, is "anytime absences reach twice as many as the established benchmark. For instance, if we had a benchmark of 7 percent and the absences reached 14 percent, we would look at closure."
As for parental notification, Brown said some have grumbled they have been getting too many notices. He said the district wants to keep parents informed "without creating more concern than necessary. But I would rather err on the side of too much information."
At Beaver Creek School, because swine flu cases are not reported to the school unless the student is hospitalized, officials have no notifications of H1N1. Superintendent Karin Ward said there have been a couple of ill students they suspect had swine flu when the school sent them home.
The school already had 300 students vaccinated against seasonal flu and is sending out permission slips for an upcoming H1N1 vaccination clinic.
"We are being as proactive as we can with that," Ward said.
The vaccine itself has been slow in coming across the country.
Oct. 27, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden reported there were 22.4 million doses available in the United States, a jump from 14 million last week but still behind expectations.
"We wish we had more vaccine available now," he said. "We wish it had been available weeks or even months earlier but we're beginning to get to a significant increase in the availability."
To the CDC's frustration, opposition to the vaccine has been quite loud in some quarters, with naysayers divided into groups insisting it is not necessary or, conversely, is untested and too dangerous.
"Again, we've said it, I don't know how else we could say it, but it's the same manufacturing process," Frieden said. "It's the same factory, it's the same safeguards, and if we had had H1N1 earlier in the season, we would have most likely included it in the seasonal flu vaccine so it would have just been part of the regular seasonal flu vaccination program as it will be for the southern hemisphere in the coming flu season."
For now, Brooke Calvert is back at home and getting well, thanks to Tamiflu. And her father wants to see changes in the school district's notification system.
Brown said the district has confidence in the county guidelines. He said officials will review the notification process to see if improvements need to be made if something like the H1N1 virus occurs again.
While attendance rules are stipulated by law, Brown said a pandemic situation is a gray area when parents want to keep children at home to avoid contagion.
"We use good sense," he said. "We have faith in our parents to do what is right for their children."
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, October 30, 2009
Article comment by:
Ria Rhodes
"Hit hard by the economy, they do not have health insurance to pay for tests, which can cost hundreds of dollars."
Unsettling. I'm sure all readers hope these kids make a full recovery. Of course most area residents continue to vote Republican, the party that tries any and all tactics to thwart US health care reform and serve big pharma and big insurance, but why not? They and their families enjoy their government paid medical plans already. So, every developed country that mandates universal medical coverage for their citizens as a moral prerogative must be missing something the flat earth GOP has right - or not?
