October 3^rd, 2009

H1N1 Update

Today I was informed of a suspected case of H1N1 in our grade 11 class.  The student is resting at home and has been placed on Tamiflu.  I expect the student to fully recover from the flu and return to school after a seven day period. 

As I have stated in an earlier H1N1 update, The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that H1N1 is now the dominant virus strain in the seasonal flu cases.  The report states:

Evidence from multiple outbreak sites demonstrates that the H1N1 pandemic virus has rapidly established itself and is now the dominant influenza strain in most parts of the world. The pandemic will persist in the coming months as the virus continues to move through susceptible populations. Close monitoring of viruses by a WHO network of laboratories shows that viruses from all outbreaks remain virtually identical. Studies have detected no signs that the virus has mutated to a more virulent or lethal form. Likewise, the clinical picture of pandemic influenza is largely consistent across all countries. The overwhelming majority of patients continue to experience mild illness. Although the virus can cause very severe and fatal illness, the number of such cases remains small.

It appears that as the weather begins to change, our students and staff will encounter more and more flu like symptoms and quite possibly suffer with the H1N1 virus (with or without being tested for it).  The good news is that all the flu symptoms to date have been mild and students have returned to classes within a seven day period completely healthy.

I have begun to collect data on a weekly basis that compares student absences in the academic years 2008-2009 and 2009-2010.  You may be interested to know that in spite of our increase in enrolment, the statistics between September 2008 and 2009 show nominal changes in attendance for students (with the exception of Saturday, September 19^th-day before Eid holiday-when many of our parents chose to keep their children away from school for various reasons).

Please remember to keep your child at home if s/he shows any symptoms of cold and/or flu.  If you send your child to school with cold and/or flu like symptoms, we will send him/her home again so it is best that you keep your child at home and save yourself the trouble of retrieving your child from school when called upon to do so.

At this time, I still believe that ABA is in the ‘low risk’ category for school operation purposes.  Thank you for your continued support and understanding.  We are doing all we can to manage this ‘seasonal flu period’.

Sincerely, 

Mona Nashman-Smith
Superintendent