East Aurora Advertiser

Influenza Makes Annual Return to Region



It’s everywhere.

It’s at the kitchen table, it’s on your favorite chair, and it’s on your phone.

Your children have it, so does your neighbor, and it seems like the person standing behind you in line at the grocery store does too by the way they keep coughing.

And coughing.

We are talking about the flu, and it is right in the middle of flu season. However, health officials say this flu season is an improvement from last year.

“Last year we saw flu numbers that we hadn’t seen in years, but the vaccine was not a good match compared to the circulating flu viruses,” Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein said during a phone interview. “Statewide activity for the flu this year is starting to plateau, but we are still seeing cases increase locally.”

Symptoms of flu include cough, sore throat, runny nose, body aches, chills, fatigue, and sometimes a fever. It is a viral infection that does not respond to antibiotics. The time from when a person is exposed and infected with flu to when symptoms begin is about two days but can range from one to four days.

The flu virus spreads through the air when infected individuals cough or sneeze, the virus can live on a hard surface for over 24-hours.

“It is very hardy and it can survive,” Burstein said. “If someone is ill, it’s important for them to be responsible residents and stay away from other people to avoid infection. Don’t go to work or to school, and try to be respectful of spreading the disease.”

Graph by Erie County Health Department

On Feb. 8, 10 percent of the student body in East Aurora, or 173 students, were reported absent at school, and Parkdale Principal Jessica Lyons said that one of the first-grade classrooms was down to just 14 students recently with eight absences. Comparatively, two weeks earlier, 78 students were reported absent from all three school buildings. Other days the amount of students who are absent is around 50.

Despite the increased levels of sickness in students, it does not seem to be spreading to the teachers.

“There has been no unusual increase in staff absences,” Lyons said. “They are really good at disinfecting, washing their hands and taking preventative measures.”

Parkdale school nurse Sandra Todora said students that have been diagnosed with influenza are contagious and must be out of school for at least three days.

“They must also be fever free, less than 100 degrees [fahrenheit], for a full 24 hours without fever-reducing medication prior to returning to school,” she said in a written statement.

Burstein said that February break is an ideal time for schools to disinfect before the students return to class at the end of February.

Douglas Wicks, who is the Director of Facilities for East Aurora Schools, said all of the desks, chairs, handrails, phones, and other items get disinfected each day, sometimes more than once. Things that require a lot of drying time, like the area rugs in Parkdale, will be deep cleaned over the break.

“That’s important because the students sit on them every day. They will be as clean as can be until the next person touches it,” Wicks said. “And it’s important to get things clean, but many germs are passed through the air.”

There are typically two vaccines created each year. One contains two strains of Influenza A and one strain of Influenza B. The other is a “quadrivalent,” so it contains four strains of flu: namely two strains of both A and B.

According to the health department, this year’s quadrivalent vaccine protects against Influenza A (H1N1), Influenza A (H3N2), as well as the Victoria and Yamagata strains of Influenza B.

H1N1 is the predominant flu right now, with the most reported cases. H1N1 is also known as avian flu, or bird flu, and Burstein said that it is similar to the strain that was prevalent in 2009. It is not as severe this year because over time it has mutated and because it is included in the current flu vaccine.

“When we had the outbreak several years ago, that strain was novel, it was not included in the vaccine strain,” Burstein said. “Also surprising with that year is that it occurred in the spring and summer instead of during the winter season.”

Burstein added that Influenza A is typically dominant at this time of year, then cases of  Influenza B tend to be detected until flu season is over, in May.

“We don’t know why, it’s just a recurrent pattern,” she said.

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