Sickness confined to St. Charles East High population so far

An outbreak of flu-like illness has not spread from St. Charles East High School to other schools in the district as of Wednesday, according to local school officials.

All other District 303 schools went about normal business, despite the outbreak at the high school that fueled 972 absentees by the end of the day Tuesday.

Teachers spent Wednesday calling all 972 students who were absent to get a rundown of whether or not they are sick, their symptoms are if they aren't feeling well, when the symptoms began and if it seems they are improving.

District 303 Spokesman Jim Blaney emphasized the district is not aware of any confirmed cases of H1N1 in the students who are sick.

"It is only a confirmed case (of H1N1) if they are admitted to the hospital, tested and confirmed by the hospital," Blaney said.

Blaney also wanted to put to rest any rumor that the majority of students who were absent aren't sick or that this is a student prank.

"We have no indication that that is the case," he said.

The Kane County Health Department will analyze the data teachers are collecting and hopes to have some answers about what is behind the St. Charles East High School outbreak by the middle of next week. Health Department Executive Director Paul Kuehnert said he's already heard of some information about students experiencing headaches and vomiting as their symptoms.

"That's not the flu," Kuehnert said. "That's something else."

The illness at St. Charles East seemed to be quarantined to that specific population of students and teachers.

"There's really nothing that we're seeing that would support that there's a huge outbreak of flu in any part of the county," Kuehnert said. "There's no cause for alarm."

Area businesses, hospitals and schools in surrounding districts all reported no significant uptick in reported illnesses Wednesday.

"We saw a spike from our usual 3 or 4 percent," to about 8 percent Tuesday, said Jack Barshinger, superintendent of Batavia Public Schools. Of the 400 or so children absent, 100 reported flu symptoms, he said.

The district has also begun tracking overall employee attendance rate. Thus far, about 10 of 600 employees have called in sick because of influenza, he said.

Absences at West Aurora District 129 schools, which draw from Aurora, North Aurora, Batavia and Montgomery, were less than 10 percent, according to Mike Chapin, the district's community relations coordinator.

Kane County Regional Schools Superintendent Doug Johnson said no school in the region, other than St. Charles East, has had an absentee rate greater than 10 percent so far.

"When it starts to go above that, we start looking at if there is something going on," Johnson said. "St. Charles East High School happened pretty fast."

Johnson said he was aware of the school having high absences on Monday, but factored in how the school had homecoming the preceding weekend and decided to see if the absentee rate fell on Tuesday.

"What you probably had were kids that should have been at home in bed already, kids who might have been coming down sick before homecoming, but they're not going to miss the homecoming experience," Johnson said.

When the absentee rate escalated Tuesday, District 303 officials made the call on their own to close the school for the rest of the week. Johnson said that decision won't necessarily set the precedent for other districts if they see a similar outbreak. No formal regional policy is in place that triggers a school to close when its absentee rates hit a certain level, nor are there guidelines for when a school should reopen. The suggestion from the Centers for Disease Control leave the decision to individual school superintendents in consultation with their local health department.

"This is still new," Johnson said. "Each case is unique. We're just trying to learn more and more and hope this is isolated."

So far it seems to be. Even District 303 schools with students who have siblings that attend St. Charles East are not seeing unusual levels of illness. And the outbreak doesn't seem to be carrying over to the places of employment for the parents taking care of the sick St. Charles East students.

Attendance at at least one St. Charles employer, DuKane Corp., does not appear to have been affected.

"When I saw the paper today, I thought 'Uh oh, we're going to have a problem,' " said Terry Goldman, the company's vice president of administration. The St. Charles plant employs about 160 people.

Delnor Hospital in Geneva had only four people hospitalized with influenza symptoms Wednesday, but H1N1 test results have not come back yet on those individuals, said Infection Control Practicioner Lynne Skelton. Influenza hospitalizations are up at Delnor for this time of year. Normally severe cases of the flu don't surface until November or December, Skelton said.

The hospital received its own shipment of H1N1 vaccine Wednesday and will vaccinate employees this week.

Central DuPage Hospital in nearby Winfield has not seen an increase in people seeking help for influenza. But business has increased in the emergency department and in its outpatient clinics, said Dr. Kevin Most, vice president of medical affairs.

"A lot of these people have mild upper-respiratory symptoms," he said. Tamiflu prescriptions, he said, are being written for those who obviously have the flu (high fever, cough, significant body aches), and for those who may have less-severe symptoms but are positive for Type A influenza on a rapid test. Results for an H1N1 test take several days. H1N1 is a Type A influenza. Tamiflu can shorten the duration of influenza by several days.

Central DuPage employees were vaccinated, voluntarily, against H1N1 Monday.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <!-- Start of Brightcove Player --> <div style="display:none"> </div> <!-- By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C found at http://corp.brightcove.com/legal/terms_publisher.cfm. --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script> <object id="myExperience45768600001" class="BrightcoveExperience"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /> <param name="width" value="300" /> <param name="height" value="255" /> <param name="playerID" value="18011347001" /> <param name="publisherID" value="1659832549"/> <param name="isVid" value="true" /> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="45768600001" /> </object> <!-- End of Brightcove Player --> </ul> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=330364">Flu-like illnesses close St. Charles East High <span class="date">[10/20/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>