SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Children at school may be put into isolation rooms if they show symptoms of flu this fall, if NWT schools follow the recommendations of an Alberta adviser on planning for pandemics.

"(If) one of the teachers notices the symptoms (of swine flu in a student), then the recommendation from my point of view ... is to have an isolation room and then the parents would be called and they would take the child home," said Vince Rodgers, a labour consultant with the Alberta School Board Association. Rodgers is being brought up Sept. 14-15 to help develop a pandemic plan with the NWT's school boards.

"When I was (working) with the government, I was part of a team that worked on an operational plan on how we'd deal with a pandemic," said Rodgers. "We were working on a plan for H5N1, which is the bird flu."

He added that an outbreak of avian flu would be much more serious - he guessed the mortality rate would be around 62 per cent.

"We were working on a pandemic plan then, and I then took it a stage further when I was with Alberta education, to come up with a business continuity plan for school boards," said Rodgers.

At the moment he is working with 33 school boards in Alberta in the various stages of their planning.

Rodgers talks with senior administration and staff, and helps facilitate discussion and offers ideas for a pandemic plan, stemming from his experience with the other boards as well as researching ways to curb the flow of the disease.

Dr. Kami Kandola, acting chief medical officer, told Yellowknifer July 17 with the fall season approaching, they expect to see more cases of the flu.

"We are heading into the fall and traditionally that means it's going to be more crowded, people are indoors, kids are going back to school," Kandola said of what will lead to the increase.

The World Health Organization has put forward the possibility of closing schools in order to prevent the spread, but Rodgers said that is not necessarily the answer.

"If we close the schools, kids will gather somewhere," he said.

The best way to keep H1N1 flu out of schools is for people to stay home when they're sick, he said.

"If you feel sick, don't be the martyr - don't go into work or school," he said. "Stay home and really watch the symptoms very carefully."

But schools still need to plan what to do if a child shows up at school while ill.

He said the isolation room should be close to a water supply and a bathroom, so that the student does not have to walk across the school and potentially spread the flu.

"One other quite serious recommendation would be to have a plan to see how much work you can do at home," said Rodgers, in order for the school to cope with absences due to illness.

He suggests that boards have a way to operate payroll from home, and have someone in place to take over for the superintendent if they fall sick. As well, he advises parents to enforce flu-prevention hygiene by ensuring children wash their hands at least four or five times a day - not just a quick rinse, but a serious scrub - and cough and sneeze into their sleeves, not their hands or the air.

Rodgers said the fabric in a shirt will absorb spittle better than a Kleenex.

"Sadly, if you go to somebody's desk who has (H1N1 influenza) and you touch that desk, even three days later, there is a real chance you can pick it up," said Rodgers.

"The best thing you and I can do is keep up with our own cleanliness."