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Influenza spreads much faster than you might think. Contamination of a single doorknob can lead to the spread of virus throughout an entire office building or hotel in as little as two hours, according to a new study from the University of Arizona.
That’s pretty scary if you think about how this could affect your workplace in terms of the number employees on sick leave and overall productivity. Did you know that a flu-infected employee may be absent for up to 6 working days? Or that the flu can impair an employee’s performance by 20-40%? Those are big numbers if the flu happens to spread throughout your company.
Rates of inter-seasonal influenza have been increasing since the 2009 influenza pandemic and the number of flu infections reported tripled in 2014 when compared to 2013, with numbers over 62,000 nationally.
Illness develops 2-3 days after being infected with the virus. Symptoms include fever, chills, headache, muscle and joint pains, sore throat, stuffy or runny nose, sneezing, dry cough, tiredness and difficulty breathing. In some people, complications can cause pneumonia and even death. A person is infectious 24 hours before signs of illness appear until approximately 5 days after. And you certainly don’t want to take the flu home to your children where they can potentially remain infectious for two to three weeks.
Droplet transmission
When a person with influenza coughs and sneezes, droplets are propelled into the air to a distance of up to one metre where they may be deposited into to the eyes, nose and mouth of another person or onto a surface such as a desk. Sounds lovely doesn’t it?
Contact transmission
The virus can be transmitted between individuals either directly, through skin-to-skin contact, such as shaking hands with an infected person and then touching the eyes, nose, or mouth or indirectly, by touching a contaminated object or surface such as a table, door knob, telephone, or computer keyboard and then touching the eyes, nose, or mouth.
Contact transmission is important because the influenza virus has been shown to survive on unwashed hands for up to 30 minutes, on cloth, paper and tissue for up to 12 hours, on hard nonporous surfaces for up to 48 hours and on surfaces contaminated with faeces for up to 5 days!
Contact transmission is thought to be the principal route by which influenza is spread within the community.
The Australian Government’s Department of Health and Ageing advises all workers to adopt the following infection control measures to prevent the spread of influenza:
By applying the strategies above in your workplace, spread of the flu will be kept to a minimum. However it is important to remember that the only available preventative measure for the flu is vaccination.
Can your business afford the flu? If the answer is no then you might want to consider getting your employees vaccinated.
If you’d like to know more about how to prevent the spread of the flu in your workplace via the flu vaccine please give us a call on 1300 856 282
Read about our Flu Vaccination program.
Head Office Melboune
139 Ormond Road Elwood, VIC 3184
Mornington Peninsula
20 Lister Avenue,
Sorrento,
VIC 3943
JTA Health, Safety & Noise Specialists acknowledges the Boon Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land on which the home of JTA resides. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge and uphold their continuing relationship to this land.
