When Marines and Sailors are in poor health, it can take away from mission.
With flu season around the corner, medical personnel in the Tri-Command area are working hard to ensure service members remain mission ready.
“The local county flu season runs from November until March,” said Lt. j.g. Eva Reed, the head of Preventive Medicine. “For North America in general, the season runs around early October through April.”
Though people in the Low Country are lucky to live in a geographic area with a short flu season, everyone still needs to take their precautions.
The Department of Defense and Navy have issued their goal – that 90 percent of Marines and Sailors receive the influenza immunization (flu shot) by Dec. 1.
“For active duty, the flu shots will be available this month,” said Reed of Bay Area, Calif. “For our family members that get their health care at Naval Hospital Beaufort, they’ll be able to get the shot later in October.”
Whether one has to get the immunization or not, everyone is strongly encouraged to get it.
“The best way to prevent getting the flu is to get the shot,” Reed said. “From there, it’s basic infection control measures.”
Those basic measures consist of hand washing, use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer and cough/sneeze etiquette.
“To cough or sneeze without passing germs, all you have to do is do it [sneeze or cough] into your arm in the elbow area,” Reed added.
Another way to stay healthy is to stay properly hydrated. Drinking plenty of fluids can help the body fight germs, especially for young children, Reed explained.
According to www.cdc.gov/flu, if one does fall ill to the flu, symptoms typically include high fever, headache, tiredness, cough, soar throat, runny/stuffy nose, body aches and diarrhea or vomiting.
Though, the Web site says having those symptoms does not always mean a person has the flu. The common cold has very similar symptoms. Generally, the flu is worse than the common cold and has more intense symptoms.
Even if all the precautions to preventing the flu are taken, anyone can still get it.
“It’s important to plan now for what you’re going to do if you get sick,” Reed said. “Everyone needs to make sure they have fever reducing medicine and pain relievers like Tylenol or Motrin. If you have children, make sure you have pediatric medicine, too. Also, people should make sure they have decongestants and cough medicine.”
If a person does fall ill, the recommended way to nurse one back to health is simple.
“If someone gets sick they need to stay home,” Reed explained. “Unless they have anything other than moderate respiratory symptoms such as a cough, minor congestion or soar throat.
“If it’s anything worse than that, then they should call their healthcare provider and ask if they should come in or not. It’s important to know if you go to the emergency room not much can be done for the common flu,” she added.
If the proper route to recovery is used, anyone who becomes ill is expected to recover quickly.
“Most people recover in two to three days,” Reed said. “But they must remain at home until 24 hours after their fever subsides without using fever reducing medicine.”
Marines from the operations office, such as Lt. Col. Craig Hungerford, are urging Marines and Sailors to take-on flu season with precautions.
“We don’t want our Marines getting sick,” Hungerford said. “We want them healthy and capable.”
