Schools draft plans for avian flu

As fears of a global flu pandemic intensify, Massachusetts schools are urgently planning how they would feed thousands of college students stranded on campus, educate children who can't come to class -- and even care for research animals.

In recent weeks, educators have held crisis simulations, bought emergency equipment, and considered early warning systems to detect disease outbreaks.

''An area where we feel we've had a certain level of vulnerability is in education," Paul Cote, the state's public health commissioner, said last week. ''A lot of colleges and universities are like small towns. Not only are they going to have workforce issues, but a lot of these kids they're responsible for will be sick."

Statewide flu planning efforts during the past two years have concentrated on the institutions that would probably bear the heaviest burden during a pandemic: hospitals, nursing homes, and emergency service agencies. As a result, schools have lagged, even as concerns deepen that avian influenza, which has killed millions of birds and 109 of its 192 human victims, is only months away from landing on US shores.

''I can't put my hands on a can of baked beans right now," said Dr. Tom Nary, director of health services at Boston College. ''But certainly, that is being planned right now."

Disease specialists have long feared that a new form of flu -- unfamiliar to human immune systems -- could sweep across the world, causing millions of deaths in a pandemic reminiscent of the infamous 1918 flu.

In such a global outbreak, up to 40 percent of workers could be forced to stay home, crippling the ability to provide such services as garbage collection, and affecting daily operations in grocery stores and classrooms. Although the current strain of avian flu is not easily transmitted from human to human, researchers warn that it could acquire the genetic ability to do so.

''We're realizing that after a week or so, if the [food] supply is interrupted then we have a big problem," said Peter Schneider, executive director in the Office of Environmental Health and Safety at Boston University. ''We don't have a lot of meals squirreled away in the basement. We're looking at what kind of backup systems there are.

''It is certainly very complicated," he said.

That's why at BU, administrators bought a sophisticated emergency notification system this month that could contact 250 pivotal university executives and employees within minutes, if disease washed over the campus.

One of the first issues university officials expect to encounter is what to do with thousands of students living in dormitories. At BU, for example, 10,000 students live in university-owned housing, and Schneider predicted that if a pandemic occurs, additional students living on their own will head to campus, seeking information, comfort, and food.

The flagship University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst has 25,000 students -- about half of whom live in 41 campus dorms -- as well as 7,000 faculty and staff members, who might also look to the school in a time of crisis.

''We have a very large population, so you get into some very large issues with not only dispensing medication but potential quarantine of students if necessary," said Donald Robinson, the UMass administrator responsible for emergency preparations.

And some of those students live far from their parents, or even their homelands. So colleges are weighing their responsibility to pay if students need to return home from a shuttered campus, assuming flights even exist during a pandemic to ferry them home.

Another vulnerable population: lab animals.

When Hurricane Katrina struck, thousands of laboratory animals and years of scientific research were obliterated at Tulane University and the medical campus of Louisiana State University in New Orleans. That devastation reminded Massachusetts colleges of the importance of developing plans to keep experiments running and animals alive even if a pandemic forces lab evacuations.

''There are people who've put 20, 30 years of their lives into experiments and those just can't go away," said Joe Wrinn, a spokesman for Harvard University.

At elementary and secondary schools, campaigns are being drafted to remind students and their parents of the importance of covering their mouths and noses when they cough and sneeze. Dr. Linda Grant, medical director for Boston public schools, said that when students return to school after their summer vacations, they will receive a checklist to take home detailing their role in preventing the spread of flu.

Two weeks ago, Cote and David P. Driscoll, the state education commissioner, issued a letter to school superintendents across Massachusetts telling them ''it is critical that we prepare not only statewide but also locally and regionally for a potential pandemic."

The Boston schools are also reviewing whether they should adopt an early warning system to detect a flu pandemic, and administrators are weighing what they should do if students show up with signs of the respiratory illness.

''Are we there with the guidelines already? No, we're not," Grant said. ''But we know we need to have them."

The state Department of Education is also leading discussions about one of the most daunting issues confronting educators: When should they close primary and secondary schools during a pandemic that could last months? Shuttering schools would have profound implications for the education of students and for the economy.

''There are services provided by the schools that are very, very important to keeping society running," said Dr. Paul Biddinger, a Harvard School of Public Health specialist in emergency preparedness. ''If schools close, parents are going to have to stay at home and take care of their children."

Superintendents from across the state plan to begin reviewing school closing policies in May.

''All of us are trying to strike the balance between not causing people to worry too much," said Boston schools spokesman Jonathan Palumbo, ''but at the same time realizing this is a ery real threat that we will have to deal with at some point."

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.