Businesses and Employers
Your business may experience higher than normal absenteeism due to the highly contagious H1N1 flu (swine flu) and the seasonal flu. Both types of flu can cause mild to severe respiratory illness and can even lead to death. We urge you to follow the guidelines below and work closely with us to slow the spread and severity of flu season here in South Carolina.
Symptoms of Flu
The flu is different from the common cold. But symptoms of seasonal flu and novel H1N1 flu are very similar.
When a person gets seasonal or novel H1N1 flu, one or more of these symptoms will probably come on suddenly — about 48 to 72 hours after contact with the virus:
- Fever (usually high)
- Headache
- Extreme tiredness
- Dry cough
- Sore throat
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Muscle aches
- Occasionally, stomach symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Urgent Warning Signs
These symptoms indicate that an employee or customer needs to seek medical attention immediately.
In adults:
- Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
- Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
- Sudden dizziness
- Confusion
- Severe or persistent vomiting.
In children:
- Fast breathing or trouble breathing
- Bluish skin color
- Not drinking enough fluids
- Not waking up or not interacting
- Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
- Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
- Fever with a rash.
Flu Planning Advice for Businesses and Employers
Make a flu response plan using these resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
- Small Business Flu Response Plan
- Plan for the Impact of Influenza Pandemic on Your Business
- Business Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist
- Health Insurer Flu Response Plan
- Pandemic Preparedness for Businesses with Oversees Operations
- Guidance for Businesses on Planning and Responding to the 2009-10 Flu Season
Protect Your Employees and Customers
Do your part to prevent and slow the spread of seasonal and novel H1N1 flu among your employees, customers and their families:
- Encourage employees to learn the facts about vaccination and get vaccinated against seasonal flu and novel H1N1 flu.
- Tell your employees about Web sites that can help them find DHEC flu clinics and locate clinics offered by other community providers.
- Require employees to stay home if they have a fever of 100ºF or higher with a cough or sore throat.
- Require employees who have flu to remain at home until their fever has been gone for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medications. In most cases employees with the flu will miss 3 to 5 days.
- Expect and plan for higher than normal employee absences this flu season. If you don’t already have one, establish a list of on-call workers to cover for employees who are ill.
- Change your policies to encourage and support rather than penalize employees who must miss work because they are ill with the flu or caring for a family member who has the flu. When symptoms are mild, the employee may not need to see a health care provider, so it’s best not to require a doctor’s excuse. Also, some employees may be forced to stay home in an outbreak due to school and child care closings. Employees who stay home when sick are helping to protect other employees, customers and the public. Allow them to do this without fear of losing their jobs.
- Separate ill employees from other workers until they can go home.
- Recommend that employees who have flu symptoms see their health care provider right away if they are at high risk for complications. Early treatment with antiviral medications may help lessen the symptoms. Those at high risk include
- Adults and children who have chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes or other lung, heart, liver, blood, neurologic, neuromuscular, or metabolic disorders
- Pregnant women
- People aged 65 years or older
- Adults and children with weak immune systems
- Children younger than 5 years old
- Children younger than 18 years who are on long-term aspirin treatment.
- Encourage employees to wash their hands often with soap and water. Ask them to get into the habit of washing their hands for about as long as it takes to sing the Happy Birthday song twice.
- Ask employees to cover their nose and mouth with a tissue when they cough or sneeze and throw the tissue in the trash.
- Encourage your employees to eat a healthy diet, exercise and get plenty of rest.
- Frequently wipe down commonly touched surfaces like stairway railings, telephones, and door handles. Otherwise, follow your normal housekeeping routine. Get additional information on environmental disinfection to prevent flu from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
- Download, post and distribute free DHEC flu materials.
- Educate employees about the dangers of giving aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) to children or teenagers who have the flu. This can cause a rare but serious illness called Reye’s syndrome.
- Consider selective business closings in flu outbreaks, especially if your staff includes a sizeable number of people with chronic health conditions or pregnant women.
Vaccination
Flu vaccines are your employees’ best protection against seasonal and novel H1N1 flu.
Each strain of flu requires a separate vaccine.
People who are in greater danger of life-threatening health problems from novel H1N1 flu or seasonal flu, should get vaccinated as soon as possible. The CDC also urges anyone who lives or works closely with an at-risk person (such as an infant under 6 months of age) — to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
These Groups Need Flu Vaccines the Most
The CDC recommends that these groups get flu vaccines as soon as possible.
The list for seasonal flu is different from the list for novel H1N1 flu.
These People Should Get a Seasonal Flu Vaccine ASAP |
These People Should Get a Novel H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) Vaccine ASAP |
| Those age 50 and older | Pregnant women |
| Pregnant women | Household contacts and caregivers for babies younger than 6 months of age |
| Children 6 months to 18 years of age | Healthcare and emergency medical services personnel |
| People of any age who have chronic medical conditions (e.g. asthma, diabetes, congestive heart failure, lung disease) | All children from 6 months to 17 years of age |
| People who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities | Young adults 18 to 24 years of age |
| People who live with or care for those at high risk for complications from flu. | People 25 through 64 years of age who have health conditions that put them at higher risk of medical complications from flu. |
Get updates on vaccine availability in South Carolina, learn more about vaccine safety, and find a flu vaccine clinic in your local area.
Also see these CDC resources on flu vaccines:
- Flu Myths and Realities
- General Questions and Answers on H1N1 Vaccine Safety
- General Questions and Answers on Thimerosal
- 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccine and Pregnant Women
- H1N1 Flu Vaccination Resources
- Asthma Information for Patients and Parents of Patients
Flu Information in Other Languages:
- American Sign Language Videos on Flu for People Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
- Flu.gov Multi-Language Fact Sheets in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, German, Italian, Korean, Russian, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.
If, after reading the information available here, you have questions about the 2009 H1N1 vaccine,
please call 1-800-27SHOTS (1-800-277-4687).
