Chicken pox outbreak at CSES monitored


Health officials are monitoring an outbreak of chicken pox at Cluster Springs Elementary School, according to Dr. Charles Devine, director of the Halifax County Department of Health. Since Sept. 1, eight cases of the disease have been confirmed among students and adults who attend or work at the school.

According to a press release issued by Devine, the majority of the children confirmed to have the disease have had at least one dose of the chicken pox vaccine, although a single dose does not confer optimal protection, he noted.

“Even if your child has had one dose of chicken pox vaccine, it is possible to still acquire the disease,” Devine noted, adding that since June of 2006 a second dose of the vaccine has been advised as part of the routine childhood vaccination program to assist, in part, with outbreak prevention and control.

The second dose, he said, gives children three times as much protection as the first dose.

“By age 4-6 all children should have received two doses of chicken pox vaccine in order to add protection and reduce the chance of getting the disease. Children aged 4-6 who may have received only one dose of the vaccine when they entered school should get their second dose,” he said.

Devine cautioned that chicken pox is a highly contagious disease that is easily transmitted in classroom settings. He noted that it has an incubation period of anywhere from 10 to 21 days after contact, but the most contagious period is from one to two days before the rash appears until right after it appears.

An infected person no longer spreads the virus when all the blisters have scabs and no new blisters are forming. Children should not return to school until all blisters have scabbed, he said.

Students at Cluster Springs Elementary School were given handouts to take home to their parents on Friday. The handouts explained the symptoms associated with the disease, including the sudden onset of fever and a feeling of being tired with an itchy blister-like rash usually following on the body. New spots continue to appear for about 3-4 days and the spots scab over before falling off. Those symptoms usually appear in about two weeks after exposure to the disease.

Students also took home a questionnaire and consent form for vaccination of chicken pox, which Devine said will determine whether or not his department will administer the vaccines at the school.

If the consent forms determine a need for the shots, it is possible they could be administered as early as Tuesday at Cluster Springs Elementary.

“It may be that parents prefer to take their child to their family doctor or just come to the health department in Halifax to get the vaccine,” Devine said.

In an unrelated report, Joe Griles of the Central Office said he had been informed on Friday of a new MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) case that has been confirmed with a kindergarten student at South Boston Elementary.

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