‘Diligent High School Nurse’ Instrumental in Discovery of Swine Flu Outbreak
Photo from otisarchives4, via Flickr.
The New York Times reports this morning that a school nurse at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens was the first link in what appears to have been a chain of nurses involved in alerting public health officials to the outbreak of swine flu in New York City. Anemona Hartocollis writes:
“The detective story involving St. Francis began with a school nurse, who called the city’s school health nurse on Thursday to report about 75 students with symptoms including upset stomach, nausea and fever. The city nurse was struck by the number of cases and consulted her medical director, who told her to alert the nurse at the Bureau of Communicable Disease, officials said.”
The astuteness of these nurses has no doubt aided public health officials in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to keep track of the outbreak and organize a response. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are also tracking national and international trends as infections with influenza A (H1N1)–as the swine flu is known–emerge.
At noon today, CNN reported that the WHO has confirmed 40 cases of H1N1 infection in the United States, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, and one in Spain.
–Joy Jacobson, AJN managing editor
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