Fowl flu and pox flock to Hillsdale

Home City News Fowl flu and pox flock to Hillsdale

After the first flu-related death in Hillsdale County on April 1 and outbreaks of chickenpox in Hillsdale and St. Joseph, health officials encourage vaccinations in order to prevent additional cases of illness.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported widespread flu outbreaks statewide, with the H1N1 strain being most prevalent.

Kim Wilhelm, prevention services director for the Tri-County Health Department, said this year’s flu vaccine includes inoculation against the H1N1 flu strain. She also said getting the flu vaccine now would still be effective, and this year’s vaccine is a good match for the main strains of the virus prevalent this flu season.

“There’s been a lot of flu, and most of it has been the A strain, the H1N1, which typically is a harder flu on people,” Wilhelm said. “It was in this year’s flu vaccine, however, and we do give the vaccine through June.”

Rebecca Burns, Tri-County Health Department health officer, said those who received the vaccine were 59 percent less likely to catch influenza than those who are unvaccinated.

Nichole Ellis, a private-practice pediatrician, said the flu season has been later than usual this year, and cases of H1N1 she has seen this year are less severe than previous years.

“What we see is that the more we’re exposed to a virus or strain of a virus, the better immunity we develop,” she said. “2009 was very difficult because we hadn’t seen H1N1 in a very long time. With a shorter time span, people may have some long-lasting immunity if they had H1N1 or the vaccine for H1N1. You slowly build up some of that retained immunity, so I think that’s why it wasn’t as bad.”

Unlike the flu vaccine, which can vary in effectiveness based on the prevalence of certain strains and the number of people who become ill, Ellis said the chickenpox vaccine provides a protection rate of over 90 percent.

Outbreaks of chickenpox totalling seven cases each occurred in Hillsdale County in January and St. Joseph County in late March. While the seven cases in Hillsdale primarily involved children too young to attend school or attended in private schools, Wilhelm said the seven cases in St. Joseph required the St. Joseph school system to request the intervention of the Tri-County Health Department.

By law, students without proof of immunization or a medically-confirmed history of the disease can be excluded from the school system for up to 21 days in order to prevent further infection.

“It’s procedure when you get so many cases in a small area,” Wilhelm said. “If you just have one or two isolated cases in a school, and there doesn’t seem to be any connection, we probably wouldn’t intervene then, but we do look at it case-by-case. There have only been a few times we’ve had to keep kids out of school, and this is one of them.”

In order for students to enroll in the school system, Michigan law requires parents to confirm that their child is vaccinated or has already had chickenpox. Parents with religious or philosophical objections to vaccination can obtain waive their child from these requirements after meeting with a health officer to discuss the risks of this decision.

Wilhelm said chickenpox and other contagious diseases are especially prone to outbreaks in the school setting, where children have frequent interaction and infrequent handwashing.

“A lot of times, we’ll just get one case, and no other ones,” she said. “We’ll call and try to figure out where they got it from, but a lot of times they just don’t know — no one else in the family gets it, and it just kind of goes away, but that didn’t happen this time.”

Ronna Steel, superintendent of Hillsdale Intermediate School District, said she did not realize the serious risks that come with having chickenpox until it threatened the life of her 1-year-old daughter, who suffered from abnormal bleeding associated with the virus. Her daughter was unvaccinated because of the seizure risk posed by her epilepsy.

“She was in the intensive care unit for two or three days,” Steel said. “Up until that point, I never knew that chickenpox could be deadly to that small portion of kids, I just thought it was you wanted kids to get and get over with so they didn’t get it when they were older.”

However, Steel recognizes not everyone agrees that vaccination is healthy for children.

“It’s a hard topic, and not all parents believe in the power of that,” she said. “My mother has a very philosophical problem with immunizations, and I think the exact opposite — I think they do more good and harm. It’s a touchy subject.”

Once reported to the health agency, Wilhelm said health officers investigate the extent and severity of the cases.

“What we try to do is find out where they may have picked it up, and educate them on how not to transmit it, when it’s safe to go back to school or out in public, and encourage them to get vaccinated if they haven’t been,” she said.

Ultimately, all action taken by the schools and health department are for the wellbeing of the children.

“Immunizations are the best way to protect your child from getting these diseases,” Wilhelm said. “When the parents come in and sign these waivers, we do go over it with them. When exclusion does become necessary, parents sometimes get a little upset, but we want everyone to understand that it’s done to keep everyone healthy.”