Today, as many as 36,000 Americans continue to die each year of what's commonly known as the flu and more than 200,000 are hospitalized. Most outbreaks in North America occur between October and May. The peak season is usually late December to early March.

Human influenza is transmitted from person to person, primarily via virus-laden large droplets that are generated when infected persons cough or sneeze. Transmission may occur through direct and indirect contact with infectious respiratory secretions. The influenza virus spreads through droplets that have been coughed or sneezed into the air by someone who has the flu. You can get the flu by breathing in these droplets through your nose or mouth or by the droplets landing directly on your eyes. The flu virus is also found on the hands of people with the flu and on surfaces they have touched. You can become infected if you shake hands with infected persons or touch contaminated surfaces and transfer the virus to your own eyes, nose, or mouth.

Anyone can get influenza. You're especially at risk if you are an older adult or have diabetes, chronic heart or lung disease, or an impaired immune system. Flu cycles in a workplace can be especially devastating. The following recommendations are helpful in lessening the risk of getting or spreading the flu:

Recommendation 1. Employees should take the annual flu shots in October and November.Many studies have shown that socially active people have the highest rates of flu infection each year and are the major spreaders of flu in the community and introducers into households. This is in part due to their high level of socialization and their participation in group activities.

Recommendation 2. Develop an employee learning module and short certification exam for educating employees the flu and infectious material exposure.Your employees are the first line of interface with the general population. Their offices and meeting areas are the prime locations from which the virus will spread. Educating them on ways to eliminate transmission is an important facet in controlling the spread of the virus.

Recommendation 3. Design an "exception" policy to work attendance that encourages employees not to attend work or travel, and to cease social activities if they have a fever of 101 F or higher.Employees often come to work ill and are the prime source of spread of the flu virus. They need to realize that both their supervisors and co-workers would rather they not come work while ill. Disposable fever thermometers or the very inexpensive paper sensors could be available in the workplace for employees to check themselves during flu season.

Recommendation 4. Encourage proper hand washing with hot and cold running water, a soap dispenser, and paper towels.Typically, people carry between 10,000 and 10 million bacteria on each hand. Hand transfer of the virus is one of its prime modes of spread. To properly wash the hands, use warm, soapy water and rub vigorously for at least 20 seconds -- about the amount of time it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" twice.

Additionally, all employees or service personnel should wear disposable gloves if direct contact with blood or bodily fluids is anticipated. However, gloves are not intended to replace proper hand hygiene. Immediately after activities involving contact with bodily fluids, gloves should be carefully removed using a "cuff first" removal technique and discarded and hands should be cleaned. Gloves must never be washed or reused.

The use of antimicrobial soaps would appear to be advised, however, they raise some concerns, as well. Antimicrobial soaps contain an antiseptic agent to help lower the number of microbial flora. A key factor in its effectiveness is that it must be left on the skin long enough to work, as in a good 30-45 second scrub. Limited information has been published on which washing times are most effective.

Recommendation 5. Provide each office suite with tissues, a hand sanitizer, and dispenser. The Federal Food and Drug Administration develops regulations and standards concerning food services and recommends that hand sanitizers not be used in place of soap and water, but only as an adjunct. A hand sanitizer cannot and should not take the place of proper cleansing procedures with soap and water. In alcohol-based hand sanitizers, the active ingredient ethyl alcohol physically destroys the germs. The use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers has been shown to reduce illness and absence rates in places where germs are commonly spread, such as in schools.

Recommendation 6. Provide a cleaning agent and disinfectant for sanitizing high use items The length of time that cold and flu viruses can survive outside the body on an environmental surface varies greatly, but the suspected range is from a few seconds up to 48 hours, depending on the specific virus and the type of surface.

Although flu viruses primarily spread from person-to- person contact, they also can spread from contact with contaminated objects or surfaces. The best way to avoid becoming infected with the flu virus is to wash your hands frequently. Another way is to provide disinfectant-treated wipes and suggest to employees that they use the agents when time permits to disinfect their desk, phone receivers, and doorknobs.

Recommendation 7. Institute a "cover your cough" campaign.The second important prevention practice for flu is respiratory hygiene. To help stop the spread of germs cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. If you don't have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve, not your hands.

Recommendation 8.The employer may want to make respiratory masks available to employees to be used for coughs in severe flu seasons. Droplet precautions, such as providing respiratory masks, are designed to reduce the risk of droplet transmission of the flu. Droplet transmission involves contact of the eyes, nose or mouth with the flu virus. Droplets are generated from the source person primarily during coughing, sneezing, or talking. Masks can be effective because transmission via large-particle droplets requires close contact between source and recipient persons. The droplets do not remain suspended in the air and generally travel only short distances, usually 3 feet or less, through the air.

Since most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5 days after becoming sick, practicing proper prevention measures will benefit not only those your work with directly but those in your general office environment.
Based an article written by Joe Beck

Working the overnight shift has been linked to an increased risk of developing cancer. Though the association may seem a bit far fetched, research has found that men who work the overnight shift have higher rates of prostate cancer, while women have higher rates of breast cancer. The overnight shift - cancer link is strong enough that the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), recently added the graveyard shift to its list of probable carcinogens.

The night shift - cancer link was first brought to light in 1987, when Richard Stevens, a cancer epidemiologist and professor at the University of Connecticut Health Center, published a paper suggesting the connection. Now, scientists think there might be a real biological basis for the night shift - cancer link. Working the night shift is dangerous because it disrupts the "clock" that tells the body when to sleep and when to wake, and regulates other important biological processes. The hormone melatonin, which is vital to the suppression of tumors, is produced at night. Light shuts down melatonin production, so being exposed to artificial light in the evening could mean a melatonin deficiency. This could be one reason for the higher rates of cancer among night shift workers.

The balance between light and dark is very important to the body in other ways, and many of those processes could also play a role in determining a person's resistance to cancer. Not getting enough sleep - a common problem for night shift workers who often have other daytime responsibilities - weakens the immune system, making the body more vulnerable to an attack from cancer cells. Certain processes, like cell division and DNA repair can also be influenced by exposure to light and dark.

The WHO decision to call night shift work a probable carcinogen doesn't mean such work definitely causes cancer - just that the connection is plausible. Still, if the link between cancer and overnight work is verified, it could have vast implications. It would mean that millions of people who work the graveyard shift are at a higher risk for cancer.

Not much is known about how frequency or length of time spent on the night shift affects cancer. Most studies involving the night shift - cancer link have been done either on lab animals, or with small groups of workers like nurses and airline crews. Much more work needs to be done to determine how serious the cancer risk is for people on the graveyard shift. It is hoped that the WHOs designation of night shift work as a probable carcinogen will spark some of that much needed research.

Information gathered from an article written by Parker Waichman Alonso LLP

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