BREAKING NEWS: Several area schools close for illness

• Tweet
• 

Mount Pleasant Public Schools and Renaissance Public School Academy, 2797 S. Isabella Road, are closed for the rest of the week because of high numbers of student illnesses.

“The (Mount Pleasant) high school has 47 percent of students absent (Tuesday),” said Mount Pleasant Public Schools Superintendent Joe Pius. “We made the decision to close down the school district for three days.”

Renaissance Public School Academy had 22 percent of the student body absent, said Business Manager Brandy Reihl.

“When (the public schools) decided to close, we decided to close,” Reihl said.

Sacred Heart Academy, 302 S. Kinney Ave., did not have the amount of students out to close, said principal Denny Starnes, but does not have busing available because it shares with the Mount Pleasant school system.

The Health Department is seeing a sharp spike in the number of cases of influenza type illness, especially among the K-12 age group, said Director of the Central Michigan District Health Department Robert Graham. The seasonal flu generally works its way through schools one at a time. The novel H1N1 is affecting multiple school districts and multiple counties.

The main differences in novel H1N1, earlier known as swine flu, and seasonal flus such as H1N1 seasonal and H3N2 is the people it affects. Novel H1N1 is more common in the young through age 24, while seasonal influenza is more common in the very young and the very old, Graham said.

“I’m seeing the potential for a lot of people to miss a lot of school and a lot of work,” he said. “It’s no worse than the seasonal flu,”

There are added clinical symptoms for novel H1N1 compared to seasonal influenza. People who have novel H1N1 are more likely to experience vomiting and diarrhea than people with seasonal flu, Graham said.

The flu vaccine, though not currently available, is still the most effective way to prevent influenza. The vaccine can take 10 days to become effective. Other ways to prevent the spread of the flu are frequent hand washing, covering the mouth when sneezing, getting regular sleep and not smoking.

“For anybody whose ever had the flu, it’s miserable, and for people who are at risk for complications, it can be deadly,” Graham said. “It’s nothing to take lightly.”