SWAMPSCOTT — A small number of Swampscott High School and Middle School students have been staying home the last few days with what doctors describe as H1N1 flu symptoms.
Whether the so-called "swine flu" is actually in the schools cannot be determined, Acting Superintendent Maureen Bingham said, because doctors, following federal guidelines, aren't doing definitive tests.
Instead, Swampscott Health Director Jeff Vaughan says, doctors are assuming that any flu at this time is H1N1. "That's the flu that's around," he said.
In Marblehead, Health Director Wayne Attridge is assuming the same thing about students absent with flu symptoms. On the other hand, he notes, the number with flu symptoms is lower than usual.
In Swampscott, "we've had a high rate of absences, but there are colds going around and other things," Bingham said.
Roughly 13 percent of the student body at Swampscott High has stayed home since Monday, Bingham said, but only 13 percent of these have reported H1N1 symptoms.
"A few have high fevers," she said.
In terms of numbers with H1N1 symptoms in Swampscott, she agreed, it amounts to a few students. She could not offer numbers for the middle school, but Bingham said the number of absences there is smaller than at the high school.
This is happening in the face of a shortage of vaccine. Municipalities have been issued about 100 doses each to fight H1N1, Vaughan said.
"We're not expecting much more than that until late December or early January," he said.
Health departments are stressing the importance of keeping both children and adults at home when they have symptoms and might be contagious. Additionally, everyone is urged to wash their hands and confine coughs and sneezes to tissues or — in an emergency — the elbow of one's clothing.
Students who have been free of fever for 24 hours — without taking fever-reducing medication — should be able to return to normal activities, Vaughan said.
For his part, Attridge said, he's developed a reporting system to keep watch on the course of any outbreak. "Nothing has jumped out at us yet," he said.
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