Steller Families & Staff,

In the past week or so, we have seen an increase in the number of students going home ill with flu-like symptoms, both here at Steller and across the school district.  I just received confirmation from ASD Health Services that Alaska is in the early stage of an outbreak of influenza (This “outbreak” occurs every year and indicates the start of Alaska’s flu season).

According to, Mike Bradley, MPH, DVM, the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium,  “Most regions of the state are reporting cases ranging from a few to large numbers, especially here in Anchorage.  In typical years  outbreaks in a community can involve 10 – 40% of the population and range over a period of 5 – 6 weeks.”

As a reminder,  a sick student who appears ill should remain home.  Please do not send a sick student to school to be examined by the nurse.  This may expose others to unnecessary illnesses.

What can families, students, and school personnel do to keep from getting sick and spreading the flu?
*     Get the seasonal FLU Vaccine.  Everyone 6 months of age and older should get vaccinated against the flu.  The 2010-2011 flu vaccine protects against an influenza A H3N2 virus, an influenza B virus and the 2009 H1N1 virus that caused so much illness last season.
*     Cover your mouth and nose. The main way that the flu spreads is from person to person in the droplets produced by coughs and sneezes, so cover coughs or sneezes with your elbow instead of your hand. If you are wearing short sleeves, use a tissue and wash your hands immediately.
*     Practice good hand hygiene.  Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing. Hand sanitizers are also effective.
*     Stay home if you are sick. Keeping sick students at home means that they keep their viruses to themselves rather than sharing them with others.  Sick people should stay at home until at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever or signs of a fever (without the use of fever-reducing medicine).
*     Clean surfaces and items that are more likely to have frequent hand contact such as desks, door knobs, keyboards, phones, or pens, with cleaning agents that are usually used in these areas.
Other important illness information:
*     Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) should not be given to children or teenagers; this can cause a rare but serious illness called Reye’s syndrome.
*     Contact your health care provider if you have an underlying respiratory illness or severe symptoms occur. Severe symptoms include: dehydration, not eating, listless, delusional, or unable to keep down any food or fluids, high fevers despite fever reducers, you have a high fever with rash, getting sick again after getting better, or with questions/concerns.

More information (and cool graphs related to this years confirmed flu levels) is available on the State of Alaska Influenza Surveillance website at:
http://www.epi.hss.state.ak.us/id/influenza/influenza.jsp

Wendy A. Williams, RN
School Nurse/504 Coordinator
Steller Secondary School