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GUEST COLUMN
Don't drop while you shop -
take steps to avoid the flu
By Dr. Mary Bengtson
Medical Director, Student Health Services
Your bags are packed, plane ticket or car ready, and mall coupons in hand for one of the most traveled and most shopped times of the year. Did you pack your thermometer and hand sanitizer?
With fewer people immunized because of the nationwide flu vaccine shortage, colder weather confining people closer together indoors, people traveling despite illness because this is a special time to gather with family, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) already reporting sporadic flu activity in over half of the United States, exposure to flu over the holidays is a possibility.
Those in high risk groups – the very young, those over 65, pregnant, suffering from chronic disease of heart, lung, kidney, or immune system, those living in care facilities, and health care workers – have the blessing of the CDC to try to find flu vaccine. For all others, knowledge is the best defense.
Flu is caused by various types of influenza A or B. The official definition is temperature of at least 100 degrees or more plus sore throat and/or cough without explanation other than the flu. Symptoms may also include headache, body aches, exhaustion, and runny nose.
Flu is spread person to person through respiratory droplet in the air or by touching a surface contaminated with virus and then touching the face. Incubation is one to four days, and a person is contagious the day before symptoms and for about five days into the illness.
Treatment includes extra fluids, rest, and medications such as decongestant, fever reducer, throat lozenges and cough medicine. Prescription medications may shorten the course of the flu if started within 48 hours of symptoms. Cough and fatigue may continue for a week or more after the aches, headache and fever have resolved. Antibiotics are given for complications, such as pneumonia, bronchitis, sinus and ear infection.
Vaccine is not the only way to prevent the flu. Avoid close contact with sick people. Think about all the surfaces you touch that could be contaminated –shopping carts, bank teller machines, money. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth since your hands could be contaminated with virus.
Wash your hands frequently while out in public and upon returning home. Use any soap, warm water and friction of rubbing hands together. Use a paper towel to turn off the faucets and to handle the restroom door. Hand sanitizer can substitute until soap and water are available.
If you are ill, keep your respiratory droplets to yourself. Cough into tissues that you throw away or into your sleeve and not into your hands. Your coworkers will likely appreciate your absenteeism more than “presenteeism,” the practice of showing up for work despite being too ill to be productive.
So go forth to the airports, rest stops and malls, you shoppers and travelers. Just be a little more careful this year.
Posted November 22, 2004
All Rights Reserved
