Swine flu puts state on "high alert"
By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff
As Mexican officials report a swine flu death toll of 149 and counting, and the number of confirmed cases in the US doubles, state public health officials said today they are mobilizing a vast network of disease trackers to detect and treat the illness.
State Public health Commissioner John Auerbach said the state is on "high alert," sending information to thousands of physicians, hosptials, day care providers and other health care centers about vigilantly watching for signs and symptoms of the disease.
State officials said today they have alredy ruled out swine flu in several of the two dozen people who displayed symptoms possibly consistent with the illness. There are no confirmed cases in the state or region, they stressed.
The state has accepted the federal government's offer of anti-viral medications to be shipped from the national stockpile, medicine that should be in state by the end of the week. Massachusetts already has 50,000 courses of anti-viral medication at the ready, Auerbach said.
One of the state's largest medical practices -- Harvard Vanguard -- said it is ramping up its electronic system of 400,000 patient medical records to scan for any uptick in influenza like illness. Boston health officials say they have a 24-hour monitoring system in place, and cautioned against panic.
Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commision, said her office is working closely with the superintendent of Boston Public Schools to monitor potential illnesses.
"We’ll be reviewing on a case by case situation where children may be infected," she said.
"It’s all a matter of where those children have been, were they even in school at the time they were potentially infectious, and who else they came in contact with."
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blogger
Elizabeth Cooney is a former
health reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she also was a
business reporter and an editor. Earlier in her career, she edited medical
books and journals at Little, Brown, and worked for Boston magazine.Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
- Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor
- Ishani Ganguli, Short White Coat blogger
Maybe it's time to rescind school policies that pay teachers a bonus at the end of year for not taking a sick day. It encourages the spread of disease, which most of the time is only inconvenient, but not in scenarios that could become pandemic.
I realize the flu is contagious before symptoms appear, but it's also contagious the first few days, when people might feel well enough to work even though a little buggy.
I can't see how "containment" is going to work. As the mother of a young child, I can't even count the number of times I've seen parents thwart school rules (i.e., child cannot come to school unless he's been free of fever, vomiting and/or diarrhea for 24 hours) for their own convenience, dosing up their sick children on Tylenol and sending them to school so that they, the parents, don't have to miss work... or be inconvenienced in any way. Of course, the medicinally-induced "wellness" doesn't last, and by afternoon the kid is at the school nurse, "suddenly" sick, waiting for the "surprised" parent to pick him or her up -- meanwhile, exposing everyone else to whatever bug they happen to be carrying. Given the total selfishness and irresponsibility of such parents -- and they are legion -- I can't see how any of them are going to end up keeping sick children home.
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