NNSL (Mar 18/98) - Three of every four Whale Cove residents are battling a flu bug that started in Iqaluit and is spreading across Nunavut, forcing the school and other community centres to close down last week.

Whale Cove's only nurse, Stania Jirec, said Friday that more than 75 per cent of the community's 300 people have some symptoms of the virus.

"Pretty much everybody has a runny nose and a cough," she said.

Jirec said she saw about 200 patients last week with the flu, and maintained she has never seen so many people get sick in such a short period of time.

"Last year, there were a lot, but it was over a longer period of time," she said.

After seeing the virus spread so quickly, she called a local shop where children hang out to ask it be closed down.

Shortly after that, Inuglak school closed, the community arena and the gym closed in an attempt to slow the spreading of the virus.

Terry Rogers, hamlet senior administrator and part-owner of AT & T Enterprises, said that he closed his shop soon after he received the call from Jirec.

"Kids like to collect there -- I to try and keep them as separate as possible," he said.

He's never seen the town close down because of a flu big, and sees it as something that was necessary mainly because the shortage of health-care staff.

"We're still a one-nurse town and it just puts too much stress on one nurse," he said.

But Jirec insisted that the situation has been kept under control through the help of the clinic's support staff as well as community assistance.

"We've managed ... through a lot of help from the support staff and the community," she said. "If it wasn't like that, I would have been on a plane a long time ago."