Maryland schools need to prepare for an inevitable flu pandemic that will likely affect children more than any other demographic, health experts told education officials Tuesday.
A vaccine-less new flu virus will spread quickly and with little warning, Dr. Cheryl De Pinto, medical director of adolescent and school health at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told members of the state?s Board of Education. The outbreak could occur when the highly pathogenic strain of the avian influenza virus that?s already infected 218 people and killed 124 worldwide mutates into a strain that can be transmitted from person to person, she said.
“Children are more likely to get infected with a pandemic strain of influenza; however, they are not necessarily the population that will be most severely ill with it,” she said.
De Pinto told board members they need to encourage local schools to add pandemic prevention and reaction steps to their required emergency management plans ? and do it soon. Schools officials will need guidelines to deal with school closures, staff and student absences and how to prepare their schools if they are needed as quarantined sites, makeshift hospitals and vaccination centers.
State officials began working on a plan for a flu pandemic last August, but noticeably absent from that process were the school systems, said Donna Mazyck, a healthservices specialist with the Education Department. She said a draft document that will help schools develop their own criteria for closing and reopening schools, strategies to keep schools? main offices open and teach a school employee to identify flu symptoms will be available soon. Teaching students basic hygiene, like washing their hands and covering their mouths when they sneeze and cough, also can help curb the spread of disease, she said.
De Pinto?s description of a pandemic was grim. A moderate flu pandemic could kill as many as 3,900 people in the U.S., De Pinto estimated, and 35,300 could die in a severe outbreak, she said. A recent study found that about 30 percent of health care workers said they would not come to work in the event of a global outbreak, she said.
Scientists estimate a vaccine would take four to six months to develop after the first reported case, she said.
