Twelve-year-olds inspire to fight flu

Bucklands Beach Intermediate School students Uhalan Rao and Joseph Meltzer with their new website.

The ‘attack rate’ of the pandemic H1N1 virus was higher for children than it was for adults (including the elderly) in NZ in 20091.

Recognising that they are the most vulnerable group again this winter, two 12-year-old IT whizz kids from Bucklands Beach are helping NZ children fight back.

As part of the sixth annual Kleenex SneezeSafe initiative, schools can go to www.beatthebug.co.nz and click on For Kids by Kids for a Maths-centred website built by Bucklands Beach Intermediate School students Uhalan Rao and Joseph Meltzer.

The boys have pin-pointed seven startling facts about flu – from world-wide swine flu deaths, to NZ’s five regions worst-affected by flu in 2009.

The boys have mapped and graphed data about colds and flu and are plotting visitors to their site from around the world on a real-time map.

Bucklands Beach Intermediate teacher Katrina Robinson says the school decided to become a SneezeSafe school last winter when the pandemic H1N1 virus struck.

When the school was asked if there were any volunteers to build a website for NZ school children, vulnerable to a possible second H1N1 wave, IT whizz-kids Uhalan and Joseph were quick to step up.

¹  Associate Professor of Virology at Canterbury Health Dr Lance Jennings.