Summer of Swine Flu, School year of Swine Flu?

Summer 2009 was the summer of Swine Flu.

Human swine flu, also known as H1N1, originated in Mexico, but quickly spread across the globe in a matter of days. In June, the World Health Organization labelled the influenza outbreak as a pandemic H1N1/09 virus.

Now, the students are back in class and schools are stressing the importance of hygiene more than ever.

Alex Dingwall, Superintendent of Fredericton’s School District 18 encouraged public and high schools to promote personal sanitation.

“Schools need to keep as clean as possible and should promote hand washing more,” said Dingwall. “There will be more signs of hand washing up.”

Dingwall says, School District 18 always prepares for flu outbreaks.

“Last year we were all set up for the Avian flu,” said Dingwall. “Every year there seems to be a new flu. Now, that it is a pandemic, students and staff really need to stay home when ill.”

Shirley Cleave, Associate Vice-President Academic of the University of New Brunswick agrees with Dingwall that students should not go to class when ill.

“Stay at home when sick,” said Cleave. “That’s so important. When you’re sick you don’t want to risk spreading the germs to the public.”

Cleave suspects that some H1N1 activity will happen in Fredericton, but not an outbreak. As a precaution, there are some spare rooms in UNB’s Suite Style Residence, above Lady Dunn Hall which are being held open to students if they get infected with H1N1, explains Cleave.

“This is a good wake-up call,” said Cleave referring to how the university plans to take care of its students.

“On the UNB campus Professors will be more prepared, flexible, pay more attention and  recognize that students may get really sick,” said Cleave. “Professors are asked to be more flexible on due dates.”

Cleave also says, she wants the students to do their part too.

“Students should attend classes when there well, because they miss classes later because they are sick,” said Cleave. “Students also need to practice good hygiene and get lots of rest.”

Another important precaution the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University are taking to help is to have flu vaccination stations available on both campuses when the vaccine comes out, said Cleave.

“It’s up to STU and UNB to respond if there’s an outbreak,” said Cleave.

Students from both universities do not seem too worried if a Swine Flu outbreak will happen in Fredericton.

“I believe this whole swine flu pandemic is nothing more than a media stunt,” said Oliver Gorman- Asal a University of New Brunswick student. “It’s not that much more dangerous than normal flu but since it technically constitutes a threat, governments are forced to react in order to look busy which only exacerbates the hysteria.”

St. Thomas University student Ashley Beck says that people are overreacting.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” said Beck. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”

Dingwall however, says he does feel people should be troubled about Swine Flu.

“I am concerned about the sickness,” said Dingwall. “H1N1 ranges from being very sick to not sick at all. We all need to take pre-cautions. Crowds gather and schools should try to keep as clean as possible.”

Dingwall says, District 18 schools sent out newsletters for the students to take home.

“Parents should know that if a child has the flu, they should stay home for at least 2 days,” said Dingwall. “The cause of the pandemic has committed publicity for proper hygiene.”

The Associate Vice-President Academic says, that people need to co-operate if they want to keep the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University Swine Flu free.

“As individuals and as a Fredericton community, we need to recognize the issue of acting responsively and minimizing the impact of H1N1.”

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Posted by Jackie Allan on Sep 27, 2009. Filed under News, This Week's Edition, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.