Watch out for fevers in daycare

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The federal government has issued new guidelines for preventing pandemic H1N1 influenza outbreaks in daycare centers, and their most important advice is to isolate toddlers and send them home as soon as they develop a fever. Although not everyone who catches the virus, commonly known as swine flu, develops a fever, the vast majority do, and they should be kept home as soon as their temperature rises.

‘If your child comes down with the flu, we hope you plan to keep them home and not share this with their playmates,’ said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said at a news conference this morning. Children should be kept at home for at least 24 hours after the fever subsides naturally, she said. Most children who catch swine flu do not need medical care unless they have underlying medical conditions, such as respiratory problems, cerebral palsy and neurodevelopmental delays. If the fever subsides and then returns, however, that may be a sign of pneumonia, and medical care should be sought.

Sebelius said both children and daycare workers should be given the new swine flu vaccine when it becomes available. Children should also be taught to wash their hands frequently and to sneeze into an arm or an elbow, not their hands, which they will immediately use to touch toys.

Every year, 50 to 100 children die of seasonal influenza. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported yesterday that at least 36 have died so far this year from swine flu -- and that is after the end of the normal flu season. Two-thirds of those deaths occurred among children who had underlying medical conditions.

-- Thomas H. Maugh II