How Schools Are Preparing for Swine Flu

As many people know, flu season is coming back around. That's right, every Fall, all the sneezing and coughing and school absences occur. This year, however, it is different. The "Swine Flu", or less commonly known "H1N1" is a new strain of the flu virus that has the potential to become a massive pandemic. But you might ask, how is this flu different then the normal flu we have every year? Well, when a flu spreads, it first has to reproduce. In this period, something all a "mutation" can occur. A mutation is mix up in the chemical make-up of the virus. H1N1 had a mutation where it will be harder than ever to make a vaccine.

All of this started about early spring this year. I am sure you can remember hearing about it on the news/radio. People in Mexico getting infected with the flu, and the number doubling every day. The origin of the flu was quickly found to be a pig farm in a small town in Mexico. But, people had the wrong idea about it. People world wide feared that coming into contact with a pig could get them the flu. This is not true. Just because the flu originated with the pigs, you cannot just get it from contact with a pig. One large city in Europe was ordered to kill all of the pigs, because they did not know that they could not get sick from the pigs. But coming back to the point, the flu was doubling in its infections everyday. Even though the hype quickly died down, the flu is said to come back, and if it does, it has the potential to be very serious.

So, what are schools doing about this? Well, schools are breeding grounds for the flu. Lot's of children, especially because they have weaker immune systems. Also, the kids are always in close situations, where they would contact each other very often. What are the schools doing to combat the flu? Well the first and foremost thing they do is let everyone know what is going on, and remind everyone to be very conscious of what they do. They remind people to wash their hands, cover themselves when coughing/sneezing, and other obvious practices of staying clean. Also, they tell students that if they are, or think they are, sick, they should stay home from school and allow time to make a recovery, and prevent others from getting exposed to the flu. But, schools nowadays are doing more even beyond the typical "staying clean" practices. Most schools are supplying hand sanitizer in all classrooms and and in cafeteria/lunchroom. They encourage the students to use this in between classes, and also before eating. This is good because, for example, if a student had the flu but did not know it, they could get it on desks, books, and other materials. If other people touched these things, and then ate food, they would be putting the virus/bacteria right into their mouth. The hand sanitizer would greatly cut down on these little issues. The schools need to be cautious of a flu that has a potential this great. The schools need to stay clean and then less kids will get infected.