Public Health Thank You Day is Nov. 25

Before settling down to enjoy Thanksgiving, take a few minutes to thank some of those people who make it possible for us to celebrate.
 
Sometimes it can be easy to take things for granted, such as the fact that community flu clinics are held every year, or that shelters are available after a storm. But without public health professionals on the job, these things wouldn’t come so easily. Public Health Thank You Day, observed Nov. 25, is the perfect time to remind ourselves of the people who make things safe for us.
 
Public health professionals work hard every day to protect and improve the health of others, including promoting preparedness. From encouraging people to get vaccinated for the flu to educating communities about how to prepare for a natural disaster, public health professionals make it happen. Without their efforts, Americans would be much less likely to be prepared for emergencies, so the Get Ready campaign is showing them our thanks.
 
Research!America, along with APHA and other public health organizations, recognize these public health professionals every year on the Monday before Thanksgiving. They are asking you to give special thanks to your local public health heroes today. Thank these individuals for what they do, and honor their work by being prepared to further improve the health of your community.
 
Check out the work these public health professionals are doing across the country and visit Research!America’s Public Health Thank You Day Toolkit for ways to be involved.
 
Thank you, public health workers!

Make sure your medicine works when you need it: Get smart about antibiotics!

Picture this: You’re coughing and sneezing. Not sure if you have a cold or the flu, you head to the bathroom and open the medicine cabinet. Checking through the bottles of pills, you find some antibiotics. Should you take them?

The answer is NO. You could be doing more harm than good! Here’s why:

• Colds and the flu are caused by viruses. Antibiotics don’t work on viruses.
• Taking an antibiotic when you should be taking some other kind of medication can lead to something called antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria are exposed to an antibiotic medication so much that they figure out how to survive around the medication. This means that medications that treat all kinds of infections won’t work any more. 
• Antibiotic resistance is one of the most serious public health threats around the world, and it’s becoming more common. 

The good news is that you can help to fight antibiotic resistance. Nov. 12-18 is Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, which was created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help educate the public about antibiotics so they can make smart choices when it comes to taking medications. Here are five tips to protect your health:

1. Do not take antibiotics for a viral infection like a cold, the flu or a runny nose. Here is a chart from CDC to help you figure out if you might have a viral infection. If you’re sick, the best thing to do is to call or make an appointment with your health care provider.
2. Do not ask for antibiotics for you or your child if your doctor says you don’t need them.
3. Do not take antibiotics that were prescribed for other people or for other kinds of infections. The antibiotic might not treat the illness that you have, so you could get sicker.
4. If your health care provider prescribes an antibiotic, take it exactly as they tell you. Finish the whole dose even if you start feeling better before the medication runs out. Don’t skip doses and don’t save medication for the next time you or someone else gets sick.
5. Wash your hands to prevent infections. (Check out our fact sheets for great handwashing information!) Make sure to wash with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer gel. Regular soap and water are fine, but avoid soaps and cleaners that say “antibacterial” on the label. These products usually have an antibiotic called triclosan, which may contribute to antibiotic resistance.

For more information to help you get smart about antibiotics, check out this Healthy You fact sheet from The Nation’s Health: Antibiotics: Know when they’re not needed. Feel free to share this with friends, family and coworkers too – Everyone has to get smart about antibiotics so that the medications work when we really need them!

If you use Twitter, join us on Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 1 p.m. EST for a Twitter chat about antibiotics. Experts from the CDC will be there to answer your questions. Follow @CDC_eHealth and @GetReady to join in, and don’t forget to use the tag #SaveAbx.

Celebrating Global Handwashing Day

Today is Global Hand-washing Day. Yes, you heard us right: Hand-washing has its own worldwide celebration.

Why make such a fuss over washing your hands? Because hand-washing is a pretty big deal! Here in the U.S., we might take soap and water for granted, but it is one of the most important things a person can do to stay healthy. In fact, a study of students in Detroit showed that people who wash their hands properly reported 24 percent fewer colds and 51 percent fewer stomach illnesses.

Image: "Wash Your Hands" poster in 24 languages,
courtesy Minnesota Department of Public Health

So how do you wash your hands the right way? Take five:

1. Use clean, warm water.
2. Lather up with soap.
3. Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds — long enough to say the alphabet, or sing the “happy birthday” song twice.
4. Rinse your hands with clean water.
5. Dry your hands.

If soap and clean water are not available, you can use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol content.

That’s it! If you start practicing healthy hand habits today, each and every time you wash your hands, you’re already on your way to a healthier you.

For more information about hand-washing, and for tips on talking to kids, teens and adults about the best way to wash their hands, check out our free fact sheets!

Announcing the winners of our 2012 Get Ready Scholarship

Six students at the high school, undergraduate and graduate level have been chosen to receive scholarships in APHA’s fourth annual Get Ready Scholarship competition.

The Get Ready Scholarship is designed to encourage high school and college students to focus on the importance of emergency preparedness. Students were asked to write essays on various topics related to public health and preparedness. Out of hundreds of essays, the following six were chosen as winners:

High school level:
• Craig Earley: Powder River County District High School, Broadus, Mont.
• Devika Patel: Montclair Kimberley Academy, Parsippany, N.J.

Undergraduate level:
• Kiyra A. L. Crooks: University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
• Ryan Masterson: Hunter College, New Haven, Conn.

Graduate level:
• Kimberley Kurek: George Mason University, School of Nursing, Washington, D.C.
• Nicole Pristera: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio

Each student will receive a $500 scholarship and a one-year APHA student membership. Read excerpts from the winning essays on the Get Ready website.

Congratulations to our winners, and thanks to every student who submitted an essay!

Flu Fridays: How is the flu shot made? (Part 1)

Happy Flu Friday! Here at Get Ready, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of getting your flu shot every year. But have you ever wondered how the vaccine is made?

There are actually two parts to making a flu shot: First, experts decide what types of flu will be included in the flu shot for the next year. Then, vaccine manufacturers start making the flu shots so that by the time the next flu season starts, millions of doses will be available. Today we’ll talk about the first part of the question: How do they decide what goes into a flu shot?

Image courtesy
CDC/ Doug Jordan, M.A.

Every year, in more than 100 countries around the world, health workers and scientists collect samples from people who are sick with the flu. These samples are sent to five international labs, chosen by the World Health Organization, that test the samples and find out what strains of influenza are most common. (In case you were wondering, the five labs are in the U.S., England, Australia, China and Japan.)

In the beginning of the year, WHO calls a big meeting with all of these international flu researchers. They figure out which types of influenza viruses were most common over the past year and then decide which strains should be included in the next seasonal flu shot. The formulas can change every year, which is why it is important that you get a new flu shot every season.

This big WHO vaccine composition meeting just happened in February. Participants decided that next year’s flu shots should protect people against two kinds of influenza A, H1N1 and H3N2, and one kind of influenza B. To learn about the difference between influenza A and B, check out our blog post about what causes the flu. You can also learn more about the vaccine selection process from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Once WHO makes its recommendations, vaccine companies around the world start making flu vaccines for the next season. While WHO recommends specific vaccine viruses for vaccine production, each country makes its own decision for vaccine licensing in its country. Making the new vaccine can take six to nine months, which means that companies are already starting to make your flu shot for next year!

Want to learn more? Check out Part 2 on how the flu shot is made, where we take a closer look at the flu shot manufacturing process.

Are you heading to the Olympics this summer? Add one more thing to your packing list

Did you know that it’s National Public Health Week? There’s a different theme every day, and today’s theme is communicable diseases. We thought this would be a great time to talk to travelers headed to the upcoming Olympic Games in London about protecting yourself from infectious diseases.

What do sporting events and international travel have to do with infectious diseases? Plenty, say the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last month, CDC asked travelers to help prevent a major measles outbreak in the U.S. by making sure their vaccines are up to date before they travel to the Olympics or any other major sporting event this summer.

CDC is worried because measles is more widespread in Europe. Officials believe that if Americans who aren’t vaccinated travel to the huge gatherings this summer, they could easily become infected and then bring measles back to the U.S., creating an outbreak here. “Disease knows no borders,” said Rebecca Martin director of CDC’s Global Immunization Division, in a recent USA Today article.

Image courtesy CDC/Judy Schmidt

This isn’t the first time that big sporting events caused concern about spreading disease. In February, two people with measles went to the Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis before Super Bowl XLVI. Fourteen people came down with measles afterwards — and only one of them was up to date on their MMR vaccination, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella.

The MMR vaccine is very effective, and it’s the best way to prevent you and your loved ones from getting the measles. The vaccine works best when two doses are given about a month apart. If you are traveling to Europe this summer for big gatherings such as the Olympic Games or the Euro 2012 soccer championship — or even if you’re going just for sightseeing — now is the time to get your shots!

CDC has information about the measles and the MMR vaccine and also general information about vaccines for travelers.

Norovirus in the news

If you’ve listened to the news lately, you may have noticed people talking about norovirus, a bug that has sickened cruise-goers and college students around the country in recent months. If you’ve found yourself wondering, “What is norovirus, exactly?” we’re here to clear things up.

[Image: norovirus virons,
courtesy CDC/Charles D. Humphrey.]

“Norovirus” is actually a group of viruses that affect the stomach and large intestines. People sickened by noroviruses often experience vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramping. Sometimes the illness comes with other less-common symptoms, such as a low-grade fever, chills, muscle aches and tiredness. The symptoms usually begin suddenly and last for one to two days. It’s common for people to say that they have food poisoning or stomach flu, when really they’ve been sickened by a norovirus.

Noroviruses are spread through bodily fluids, such as vomit or feces of a sick person, or from surfaces that the sick person has touched. People living in close quarters — such as on a cruise ship or in a college dorm — are more likely to spread the illness, which is why we often hear about outbreaks on cruise ships and college campuses. Another way noroviruses are spread is through food that has been prepared by a sick person, which is why these infections are sometimes misnamed food poisoning.

Despite all the recent attention, noroviruses are not new. A recent study in the American Journal of Infection Control found that noroviruses are the leading cause of infectious disease outbreaks in hospitals, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 50 percent of foodborne illness outbreaks in the U.S. are caused by viruses in this family.

If you are worried about protecting yourself against noroviruses, never fear! Here’s a list of things you can do to prevent their spread:

• Proper hand-washing is the best thing you can do to prevent illness caused by noroviruses. Wash your hands every time you use the restroom and always before eating food. CDC has found some evidence that alcohol-based hand sanitizers alone are not effective in killing noroviruses, so be sure to wash with soap and water as well. If you need a refresher on the best hand-washing techniques, read our Get Ready fact sheet (PDF).
•  Avoid close contact with someone who is sick. If someone around you develops symptoms of norovirus infection, don’t share eating utensils or cups, and don’t let the sick person prepare food for others for at least three days after they recover. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth before washing your hands, and avoid shaking hands if there is an outbreak near you.
•  Disinfect surfaces with a household cleaner that contains chlorine bleach, and be sure to machine-wash the sick person’s clothes, towels and sheets with hot water and dry on the highest heat setting.

If you want to find out if there’s a norovirus outbreak near you, there’s an app for that! HealthMap offers a website and an iPhone app that enable users to search for outbreaks of noroviruses (or any other illness!) by ZIP code. Check it out via the Outbreaks Near Me page.

[Image: Outbreaks Near Me screenshot courtesy HealthMap]