Army issues hand gel, training in fight against flu

FORT JACKSON, S.C. (AP) — Soldiers in boot camp are getting something new this year besides rigorous basic training — Army-green bottles of hand-sanitizer gel, part of a stepped-up effort by the military to ward off swine and seasonal flu.

Soldiers at the Army’s largest training installation and at other boot camps are also getting orders barked by their drill sergeants to use alcohol wipes and cough into their sleeves.

It’s all part of an effort that intensified when the new H1N1 swine flu spread this year to avoid repeating history. The 1918 global flu pandemic hit hard at big training camps such as Fort Jackson, where hundreds of soldiers died and thousands became ill.

Army recruits enter basic training from around the nation and the world, so medical officials say they must drill hygiene basics into each and every soldier to keep them healthy amid the stresses and strains of combat training.

“We use this over and over, every day,” said Spec. Arielle Schiltz, 20, of Detroit, Mich., showing how the small vial of hand gel she was issued fits in a shoulder pocket. “You just rub it in. After the latrine, before eating, after eating. It could be 15 to 20 times a day.”

Staff Sgt. Anthony Elmore, 37, in charge of Schiltz’s unit, said such instruction can’t be repeated enough for the estimated 50,000 soldiers who stream annually through Fort Jackson’s training units.

“We have to work and talk, work and talk,” said Elmore, of Greenwood. “We want to make sure that these soldiers know how to follow proper hygiene, so they won’t get sick.”

During the 1918 flu pandemic, Camp Jackson, as it was known at the time, had more than 60,000 soldiers in training, according to Dale Smith, the historian for the military’s medical school known as the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

Exact numbers are hard to come by, but estimates are that about 25 percent of those at the installation got the flu, and of the afflicted, about 18 percent to 20 percent died, Smith said.

Many who became ill recovered, “but it still killed a lot of people,” Smith said.

Besides rolling up their sleeves to get mandatory vaccinations, the instruction doled out by the military could help anyone keep healthy in a crowded, stressed workplace: Keep 6 feet away from those coughing or sneezing, cough into your sleeve, don’t use other people’s telephones or computer keyboards, wash your hands often, and use hand sanitizer.

Military guidance also includes using larger meeting rooms, using workspace cubicles in offices instead of open places — and even putting bunkmates in head-to-toe configurations when beds are stacked. Stalls with alcohol wipes and gel, masks and instructive posters line the walls of barracks, restrooms and training areas.

Though some anti-flu steps were included in health training in the past, the training and the use of the hand sanitizers were stepped up last spring to battle both the regular flu and the H1N1 virus, said Nichole Riley, public-affairs officer for Fort Jackson’s Moncrief Army Community Hospital at Fort Jackson. The steps appear to be working, she said.

“We’ve seen a tremendous decrease in the number of flulike illnesses coming into our urgent-care center,” Riley said.

In April, the installation logged a high of 187 confirmed cases of the H1N1 swine-flu virus, and now only about 30 cases are being dealt with, she said. Exact numbers are no longer being tallied.

“Using the hand sanitizers, the social distancing, making flu- prevention classes available. It seems to be working,” Riley said.

Keeping illnesses at bay among military recruits is particularly challenging.

“Recruits have always been a population we’ve watched very closely, because historically they’ve always been at higher risk for respiratory disease,” said Lt. Col. Steven Cersovsky, the director of epidemiology and disease surveillance for the Army Public Health Command in Aberdeen, Md.

With the flu season under way, extra attention must be paid to keeping healthy, Cersovsky said.

Soldiers are required to keep their barracks clean, wash or shower daily if training permits, and if water is not available, the small, green hand-gel containers are issued to each trainee, said Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command in Fort Monroe, Va.