Five-year-olds lead the fight against the flu

As experts reveal that the weight of the flu burden has shifted towards children, last month a class of five- year-olds at Roscommon Primary School in South Auckland took on the flu statistics which some would argue are stacked against them.

In a simple lesson in cold and flu hygiene, created in NZ and now used as a health education template off-shore, the children experienced make-believe sneezes using water spray, simulate the spread of flu viruses with glitter handshakes, and viewed the ‘Virtual Sneeze’ on-line.

The children’s teacher Desiree Campher, who has been teaching the Kleenex SneezeSafe lesson every year since 2006, knows that her students are among the most vulnerable to flu-related respiratory illness.

She believes education is the answer to the statistics her children are up against:

1.    Pacific pre-school children in Counties-Manukau were about 17 times* more likely than European children to be hospitalised as a result of the 2009 flu pandemic.
* Helen ­Petousis-Harris, director of research at Auckland University’s immunisation advisory centre; Source: NZ Herald.

2.    South Auckland is on record as one of the five regions worst-affected by flu last winter. For the 2009 flu spike and hardest-hit regions visit this link: http://www.surv.esr.cri.nz/PDF_surveillance/Virology/FluWeekRpt/2009/FluWeekRpt200929.pdf

3.    Most NZ children have three to eight colds (some more than 12) a year and most adults have two to four. http://www.bpac.org.nz/resources/campaign/respiratory/respiratory_poem.asp?page=2 http://www.familydoctor.co.nz/index.asp?U=conditions&A=15367

The ‘attack rate’ of the pandemic H1N1 virus is estimated to have been 30 per cent for NZers overall in 2009, according to Associate Prof. of Virology at Canterbury Health Dr Lance Jennings. He says children carry the biggest flu burden each winter, and are most vulnerable to the pandemic H1N1 virus.

Although the second H1N1 wave in the southern hemisphere is expected to be milder, Dr Jennings welcomes the return of the Kleenex SneezeSafe initiative for a sixth consecutive year in schools around the country.

Dr Jennings says: “Adults have a lifetime of residual resistance to different strains of influenza and vaccination support, but most children do not. And we know from years of survey data captured by Kleenex Tissues in NZ that the nation’s standards of cold and flu hygiene are disappointingly low across all age-groups.

“Good respiratory hygiene is critical in a post-H1N1-pandemic environment, and especially in classrooms and playgrounds where children are learning and playing in close proximity,” he says.

As an extra incentive for health classes in schools to join the battle to Beat the Bug this year, a $5000 prize is being offered by Kleenex Tissues to the class with the most inventive new way of delivering the Kleenex SneezeSafe message.

Participating classes will upload video and post photos and outlines of their classroom activity on-line in the new 2010 Beat the Bug Classroom Challenge.