Swine flu outbreak at Espoo day care centre

Four staff and 13 children fell ill in mid-August

print this

The City of Espoo announced on Friday that an outbreak of the H1N1 or swine flu virus had broken out in mid-August at a daycare centre in the city.
      Tiina Tossavainen, director of daycare at the City of Espoo, told Helsingin Sanomat that Espoo police decided to delay giving out information on the breakout until Friday, after the disease had been beaten.
      A total of 13 children had fallen ill in four different groups. Four members of staff caught the disease.
      The infection of one staff member and one child were diagnosed through virus analysis.
     
The first of the infections took place in mid-August, and the peak was at the weekend of August 29-30th. According to Tossavainen, the outbreak is receding, and parents of the children have been kept informed all the time.
      Tossavainen did not want to make the name of the daycare centre public, because she “wanted to protect the children and personnel.”
      The symptoms have been those of a typical flu - a high fever, sore throat, dry cough, weakness, nausea, and in some cases, vomiting.
      Under instructions of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the situation is being constantly monitored in Espoo as well.
      “Much information comes every day”, Tossavainen says. “But nowhere else has there been anything like what happened at this daycare centre.”
      The symptoms among those who caught the virus have mainly been mild, and none of the children have been sent to hospital. With some of the children, the fever has lasted about a week, and family members have suffered similar symptoms.
      Now the situation seems to be passing, according to the Espoo officials, with only individual cases of illness at the end of the week. The daycare centre has worked together with the Espoo physician responsible for infectious diseases, and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) has given instructions on monitoring the outbreak.
     
The outbreak at the daycare centre took place exactly when officials suspected the disease might emerge - a couple of weeks after centres re-opened after summer holidays.
      “It is the time every year, when people come back from holiday. Stomach bugs and other diseases run rampant”, Tossavainen notes.
     
No such outbreaks have been reported in neighbouring Helsinki.
      Paula Kokkonen, Helsinki Deputy Mayor for Social and Health Services, urges people not to panic over swine flu.
      “It should not be downplayed, but it should be seen in proportion with other hazards in life”, Kokkonen said on Friday.
      “Hundreds of people die each year of seasonal influenza, and tobacco kills 5,000. It’s amazing that people aren’t pulling cigarettes out of each other’s mouths."
      Kokkonen notes that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has scaled back some of the earlier dire warnings of swine flu. The disease is not as dramatic has it has been portrayed as in public, she notes.
      Nevertheless, she is also surprised at the large number of patients connected with the daycare centre in Espoo. “Thirteen sounds like a surprisingly large number. If just three people fall ill in Helsinki, people wonder what it’s all about. However, we don’t know how big a daycare centre is involved”, Kokkonen notes.
     
Vantaa Health Services Director Timo Aronkytö said on Friday that Vantaa has not had any clusters of outbreaks.
      “We have had about 30-60 suspected cases of the disease each week from the beginning. This is a disease rate of 0.1-0.3 per cent of the whole population. It is a very small proportion compared with seasonal influenza, for instance”, Aronkytö says.
      “Within three weeks, the number of people who catch the disease will increase. We can talk about an epidemic if the proportion of those who catch the flu rises to near 10 per cent of the population.”
     
At the end of last week there were also reports of an outbreak of H1N1 at the military garrison in Raasepori, housing the Uusimaa Brigade.
      Around thirty conscripts and others were affected, and all leaves and visits were cancelled for the time being, but the symptoms were generally mild and it is believed that the number of new cases is now falling.
      Together with schools and kindergartens, military bases and garrisons are commonly among the first locations to be affected in these instances, and there had been isolated cases of swine flu in the Finnish Defence Forces in Utti and in Kajaani in August.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Swine flu may reduce number of available child-minders in Helsinki area (18.8.2009)
  Swine flu may cause decreased intensive care availability (2.9.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat