According to the parent of a HS student, a short note was sent home with students yesterday regarding proper hand washing.
Typically in MS, and probably again in HS, students are taught about proper hygiene in phys. ed. or health class.
The hand washing note, however, coincides with a rumor regarding a student being diagnosed with a staph based infection.
The combination of note and rumor prompted the parent to contact me to determine if any other information was available. I had not heard from anyone else and am making this post to learn if there is any other information available - specifically was a student diagnosed (not who the student is), is the infection contagious, and to what extent was the building or other students exposed (staph can live on surfaces of objects and can be spread through contact, so by extension it would be assumed a staph based infection could as well).
The concern is in regard to being able to take appropriate steps to safeguard one's own child and awareness of the severity of the situation is important.
The Mayo Clinic offers this article on hand washing. Preventive steps in the absence of information is probably not a bad idea.
You can also email information to editor@newsovercoffee.com and I can post it confidentially for you.
4 comments:
I hope this IS just a rumor. Last week Shafer had a field trip to the HS to meet their "band buddy".
I work in a school district (not Nazareth) and we were recently presented with an article on staph and proper hand-washing from our superintendent and wellness committee. Perhaps Nazareth is just taking a pro-active approach as i feel our district is doing. I also googled the topic and found many informrative articles on the subject. Staph is basically everywhere on our skin and various surfaces. Some people are carriers and others are easily affected by it. proper handwashing and obvious sanitary precautions such as covering open wounds are all shown to be effective in the preventions of staph related infections. Those with poor immune systems need to be more cautious. MSRA staph is the more resilient form of staph and must be treated with caution. I found this link informative:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15604136
Sorry that's MRSA staph infections-I seemed to have made a few typos..
I would not be the least surprised to find out that there was a case of MRSA in the district and they refused to tell anyone.
After all, there were "rumors" last year about a gun being brought to the MS, and you never heard a word either confirming or denying that it happened.
At least if there is a case, the public health department will step in (by law) and shine the light of day on this is true.
My guess is the administration will try to hide just about anything to make sure they don't tarnish the "stellar" reputation of the Nazareth school system.
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