Mary Pappas, BSN, RN, is the nurse at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens who first notified officials of the swine flu outbreak. She’s been interviewed by the New York Times and by National Public Radio in the last two days. This morning she found time to speak with AJN about her experiences. […]
Photo by AlphaTangoBravo/Adam Baker, via Flickr.
The following comes to us from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
Swine Flu Guidance for Clinicians & Public Health Professionals [as of April 29, 2009, 1:45 AM ET]
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/guidance/
Clinicians should consider the possibility of swine influenza virus infections in patients presenting with febrile respiratory illness. If swine flu is suspected, clinicians should obtain a respiratory swab for swine influenza testing and place it in a refrigerator (not a freezer). Once collected, the clinician should contact their state or local health department to facilitate transport and timely diagnosis at a state public health laboratory.
Interim Guidance for Clinicians on Identifying and Caring for Patients with Swine-origin Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Infection [as of April 29, 2009 2:00 AM ET]
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/identifyingpatients.htm
Interim guidance is provided here for nurses and clinicians who might provide care for patients with swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) or suspected swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus infection. It will be periodically updated as information becomes available.
Transmission
Transmission of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) is being studied as part of the ongoing outbreak investigation, but limited data available indicate that this virus is transmitted in ways similar to other influenza viruses. Seasonal human influenza viruses are spread from person to person primarily through large-particle respiratory droplet transmission (e.g., when an infected person coughs or sneezes near a susceptible person). Transmission via large-particle droplets requires close contact between source and recipient persons, […]
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
And here are some of our more recent posts related to the H1N1 infection […]
Being very good at anything takes a lot of work. I’m impressed as all-get-out by people who get to be really good at, say, nursing. Or writing a blog. Or juggling. Or welding. I’m especially awed by people who get to be really good at more than one thing. In drifting through the blogosphere this week, I’ve come across some nurses with triple-threat skill sets, as it were. Have a look! […]
Photo by Sarah G., via Flickr.
AJN has received lots of awards over the last decade, but few compare to the most recent one. The Specialized Libraries Association (SLA) has selected AJN as one of the 100 most influential journals of the century in biology and medicine—and the only nursing journal to receive that distinction.
AJN is in its 111th year of publication. It is the profession’s journal, the most reliable source of best practices, cutting-edge trends, and policy; and it also contains the history of American nursing in its pages—including developments in the American Red Cross, military nursing, the American Nurses Association (ANA), and issues that nurses have confronted across the decades and will continue to face as they go forward in this time of seemingly continual change.
As I write this, AJN is itself changing in many exciting ways to meet the needs of readers connected to the Web. Stay tuned as we go forward; tell us what you want to hear from us; engage us in conversation; and expect insight, challenge, and yes, that most boring, rare, and necessary of characteristics, reliability.
—Diana J. Mason, RN, Editor-in-Chief
