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By GAYLE WHITE in Burnsville, ALISON YOUNG in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/11/06
Burnsville, N.C. ? As Paul Edelson, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, headed into the Health Department building in this Black Mountain town, he started to open the door for a woman on crutches.
"Wait," she told him. She pulled out a Clorox wipe and swished off the door handle.
<!--endtext--><!--endclickprintinclude--><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=175 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width=170 bgColor=#cccccc border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=9 width=168 bgColor=#ffffff border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=body>RELATED
? Information on flu shots in Georgia</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--startclickprintinclude--><!--begintext-->Dusty Beam, 23, was coming in to get a flu shot. Edelson heads a CDC team investigating an early andfast-moving outbreak of seasonal influenza that has swept the area, infecting mostly youngsters at first and forcing closure of the Yancey County and Mitchell County school systems. The episode is an epidemiologist's dream: a microcosm of how flu spreads and its impact on a community.
Local health and school authorities, alarmed when absenteeism hit 250 of Yancey County's 2,575 students and up to 45 teachers, shut schools Nov. 2 when they could not muster enough substitute teachers willing to be exposed to the illness. At midweek, the illness hit neighboring Mitchell County to the east, and those schools, serving 2,200 students, were closed Thursday after as many as 40 children went home sick within a few hours on Wednesday.
Friday was a Veterans Day holiday in both districts, and both systems are expected to reopen Monday.
"We felt a four-day break would be a precautionary measure to keep the flu from spreading to more of our students and faculty members," said Mitchell County school superintendent Brock Womble.
In a state of paranoia
Lab tests have confirmed the North Carolina outbreak is a run-of-the-mill influenza B virus, which is generally mild, with fever, body aches and dry cough. Most patients were well within four to five days, health officials said, although four children were hospitalized.
At week's end it had not been determined whether the particular strain is covered by this year's flu vaccine; local health officials who complained of not getting any vaccine during October scrambled last week to offer shots as the illness began to affect more adults.
Yancey County activated its reverse-911 calling system ? usually used to notify parents when snow causes school closings ? to warn residents not to gather in public. Soccer games, volleyball, and church activities were canceled. Folks stayed away from downtown and merchants rang fewer sales.
"Everybody's scared to death of the flu," said Sandi Hogan, administrative assistant at the Chamber of Commerce. "You get people who don't know the difference between this flu and the bird flu."
For parents, the outbreak and school closings meant missing work, getting relatives to watch children, even taking well youngsters to work.
For elderly folks in the local nursing home, it meant quarantine: no visitors all week.
For the Atlanta-based CDC, it provided a case study in lessons that could be important in a pandemic, such as avian flu.
For everyone, it meant taking precautions to stay well.
"I'm paranoid," said Beam, standing outside an examining room with a yellow paper mask across her nose and mouth because a child in the waiting room was coughing.
Down the hallway, Edelson met with co-workers April Johnson, an investigator in CDC's influenza division in Atlanta and Zack Moore, a Raleigh-based CDC investigator. They plan to question school families in coming days.
The pros to vaccination
The researchers will ask about child care, missed work and forfeited pay to get an idea of what it cost families to have their children out of school. They'll also check on what the children did outside school ? if they gathered in groups.
If officials consider closing schools in case of a pandemic, said Edelson, "it would seem prudent to understand the complications we're introducing into people's lives."
The researchers also will look at which children got sick and when, and whether there were classes or bus routes in which the illness seemed to occur first and spread. And, by looking at doctor visits during the outbreak, they will try to learn if closing the schools helped to curb the spread of the disease.
North Carolina Health Department officials said school closings are not recommended by the state and were probably not necessary, from an infection-control standpoint. "By the time the absentee rate reaches 5 or 10 percent, school closure is ineffective," said Dr. Jeff Engel, North Carolina's state epidemiologist.
By week's end, the number of sick children seemed to be down, but doctors were reporting more adults sick with flu-like symptoms, said Lynda Kinnane of the Yancey County Health Department.
The flu outbreak began in Yancey County about Oct. 26, primarily among children in two elementary schools. Because school-age children aren't typically vaccinated, health officials said it is easy for flu to spread in schools.
Caleb Ledford, 10, of Burnsville was feeling sick in late October with what he described as a cough, weak legs "and a bunch of headaches and stuff." His doctor treated him for flu; he missed Halloween trick-or-treating.
"That stunk," he said.
After a few days, he was well enough to go back to fifth grade at Burnsville Elementary School ? but 150 of his 440 fellow students were sick. So were many of their teachers.
East of Burnsville near the Mitchell County line, 96 children were absent from 250-student Micaville Elementary.
"We were having several substitute teachers come in and they'd get sick, and we were having a hard time finding substitutes for those substitutes," said Yancey school superintendent Barbara Tipton.
District officials shut the schools down.
CDC's weekly influenza report, which reflects flu activity around the country for the week ending Nov. 4, shows North Carolina as the only state with regional cases. Louisiana and Florida had local outbreaks; Georgia had none.
Few residents in Yancey had gotten their yearly flu shots when the outbreak started, thanks to delays in vaccine shipments. Despite a record number of flu shots being produced and distributed this year ? 110-115 million doses ? production delays have left some communities and doctors' offices across the country without vaccine.
CDC officials said people sickened by Influenza B are still at risk of getting sick this flu season with Influenza A.
"That's why it's still important to get vaccinated," said Dr. Jeanne Santoli, CDC's deputy director of immunization services.
.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/11/06
Burnsville, N.C. ? As Paul Edelson, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, headed into the Health Department building in this Black Mountain town, he started to open the door for a woman on crutches.
"Wait," she told him. She pulled out a Clorox wipe and swished off the door handle.
<!--endtext--><!--endclickprintinclude--><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=175 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width=170 bgColor=#cccccc border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=9 width=168 bgColor=#ffffff border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=body>RELATED
? Information on flu shots in Georgia</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--startclickprintinclude--><!--begintext-->Dusty Beam, 23, was coming in to get a flu shot. Edelson heads a CDC team investigating an early andfast-moving outbreak of seasonal influenza that has swept the area, infecting mostly youngsters at first and forcing closure of the Yancey County and Mitchell County school systems. The episode is an epidemiologist's dream: a microcosm of how flu spreads and its impact on a community.
Local health and school authorities, alarmed when absenteeism hit 250 of Yancey County's 2,575 students and up to 45 teachers, shut schools Nov. 2 when they could not muster enough substitute teachers willing to be exposed to the illness. At midweek, the illness hit neighboring Mitchell County to the east, and those schools, serving 2,200 students, were closed Thursday after as many as 40 children went home sick within a few hours on Wednesday.
Friday was a Veterans Day holiday in both districts, and both systems are expected to reopen Monday.
"We felt a four-day break would be a precautionary measure to keep the flu from spreading to more of our students and faculty members," said Mitchell County school superintendent Brock Womble.
In a state of paranoia
Lab tests have confirmed the North Carolina outbreak is a run-of-the-mill influenza B virus, which is generally mild, with fever, body aches and dry cough. Most patients were well within four to five days, health officials said, although four children were hospitalized.
At week's end it had not been determined whether the particular strain is covered by this year's flu vaccine; local health officials who complained of not getting any vaccine during October scrambled last week to offer shots as the illness began to affect more adults.
Yancey County activated its reverse-911 calling system ? usually used to notify parents when snow causes school closings ? to warn residents not to gather in public. Soccer games, volleyball, and church activities were canceled. Folks stayed away from downtown and merchants rang fewer sales.
"Everybody's scared to death of the flu," said Sandi Hogan, administrative assistant at the Chamber of Commerce. "You get people who don't know the difference between this flu and the bird flu."
For parents, the outbreak and school closings meant missing work, getting relatives to watch children, even taking well youngsters to work.
For elderly folks in the local nursing home, it meant quarantine: no visitors all week.
For the Atlanta-based CDC, it provided a case study in lessons that could be important in a pandemic, such as avian flu.
For everyone, it meant taking precautions to stay well.
"I'm paranoid," said Beam, standing outside an examining room with a yellow paper mask across her nose and mouth because a child in the waiting room was coughing.
Down the hallway, Edelson met with co-workers April Johnson, an investigator in CDC's influenza division in Atlanta and Zack Moore, a Raleigh-based CDC investigator. They plan to question school families in coming days.
The pros to vaccination
The researchers will ask about child care, missed work and forfeited pay to get an idea of what it cost families to have their children out of school. They'll also check on what the children did outside school ? if they gathered in groups.
If officials consider closing schools in case of a pandemic, said Edelson, "it would seem prudent to understand the complications we're introducing into people's lives."
The researchers also will look at which children got sick and when, and whether there were classes or bus routes in which the illness seemed to occur first and spread. And, by looking at doctor visits during the outbreak, they will try to learn if closing the schools helped to curb the spread of the disease.
North Carolina Health Department officials said school closings are not recommended by the state and were probably not necessary, from an infection-control standpoint. "By the time the absentee rate reaches 5 or 10 percent, school closure is ineffective," said Dr. Jeff Engel, North Carolina's state epidemiologist.
By week's end, the number of sick children seemed to be down, but doctors were reporting more adults sick with flu-like symptoms, said Lynda Kinnane of the Yancey County Health Department.
The flu outbreak began in Yancey County about Oct. 26, primarily among children in two elementary schools. Because school-age children aren't typically vaccinated, health officials said it is easy for flu to spread in schools.
Caleb Ledford, 10, of Burnsville was feeling sick in late October with what he described as a cough, weak legs "and a bunch of headaches and stuff." His doctor treated him for flu; he missed Halloween trick-or-treating.
"That stunk," he said.
After a few days, he was well enough to go back to fifth grade at Burnsville Elementary School ? but 150 of his 440 fellow students were sick. So were many of their teachers.
East of Burnsville near the Mitchell County line, 96 children were absent from 250-student Micaville Elementary.
"We were having several substitute teachers come in and they'd get sick, and we were having a hard time finding substitutes for those substitutes," said Yancey school superintendent Barbara Tipton.
District officials shut the schools down.
CDC's weekly influenza report, which reflects flu activity around the country for the week ending Nov. 4, shows North Carolina as the only state with regional cases. Louisiana and Florida had local outbreaks; Georgia had none.
Few residents in Yancey had gotten their yearly flu shots when the outbreak started, thanks to delays in vaccine shipments. Despite a record number of flu shots being produced and distributed this year ? 110-115 million doses ? production delays have left some communities and doctors' offices across the country without vaccine.
CDC officials said people sickened by Influenza B are still at risk of getting sick this flu season with Influenza A.
"That's why it's still important to get vaccinated," said Dr. Jeanne Santoli, CDC's deputy director of immunization services.
.