About 40 Haines School students were out sick last week as state health officials warn of a myriad of respiratory illnesses affecting children across the state.

“It’s definitely having an impact,” said Melissa Ganey, a Haines School staff member, “We’ve had a lot of students out of school the past few weeks.”

Alaska is seeing higher than normal rates of hospitalization among both adults and children due to influenza, Covid, the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and enteroviruses and rhinoviruses which cause the common cold.

Haines Head Start Program has been experiencing a similar increase in absences. “Attendance has been low and getting lower over the past few weeks,” said Andrea Ferrin, a teacher with Head Start. “We have twenty kids enrolled and we only had eleven today,” said Ferrin on Tuesday.

A young child with a respiratory illness was medevaced to Juneau from Haines over Thanksgiving weekend.

Haines Health Clinic (SEARHC) administrator Stephanie Pattison said influenza A is the most prevalent in preschool through third grade children.

“In most cases it just requires home care. There’s no magic bullet, but we do want to see any children who aren’t able to bring the fever down using Tylenol or Motrin, for example, or children who are experiencing a lot of nausea and vomiting,” she said. “Children should be kept home until they are fever free for a minimum of 24 hours. Influenza lasts anywhere from 5 to 7 days.”

The prevalence of illnesses interrupted holiday plans for some families. Kaitlin Combs’ son fell ill during the Thanksgiving break.

“He was on the couch for three days straight and unable to eat or take in fluids the entire time. His coughing was so severe that he would cough so hard it would make him throw up,” she said. “The entire family got sick during Thanksgiving and we had to cancel. My family decided to cook our own dishes and then we all drove to each other’s houses to share. It was definitely different but we still made it happen.”

For the last two years of the pandemic, exceptionally mild flu seasons have been recorded in Alaska and nationwide. In 2020, Alaska reported under 100 total influenza cases, fewer than any season in recent history. There was a slight uptick in 2021, but was still below pre-pandemic averages.

The Center for Disease Control says masking and other pandemic-related precautions likely led to lower numbers of flu and cold cases during the past two years.

Pattison said no one has tested positive yet for RSV in Haines.

“We have not seen any RSV, we have been testing for it, but we haven’t seen anybody test positive yet,” Pattison said.

Juneau and Sitka have reported cases of RSV.

“It’s very hard on young children and infants,” Pattison said. “Parents with small infants should be wise in making sure that anyone who comes into contact with their children is practicing good hand hygiene. Children that are less than 6 months old are not able to get the flu vaccine so now is a wise time to keep your babies home.”

Pattison said some residents are testing positive for Covid, but have not required medical treatment. Free home test kits are still available at the clinic and can be picked up at the pharmacy anytime between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., she said.

Hospitals around the country have reported a surge in pediatric RSV patients in recent weeks. Recent Alaska RSV patient counts aren’t as high as what’s being seen in the Lower 48, but that could change as Alaska’s health trends tend to lag behind those in other states.

Haines School superintendent Roy Getchell said three to four staff are also absent and that the spate of absences “feels like a pre-pandemic period that we usually experience much later, like in January or February.”