WSIL-TV 3 ABC
Top Stories
Last updated 5:52 pm CT November 20, 2009.
Local Jails Fight Off Flu
"We spend a lot of time cleaning, especially in areas where the public may have been," says Saline County Sheriff Keith Brown.
As you walk through the halls of the jail, you can see that every desk is equipped with disinfectant, and every surface used by multiple people is sprayed generously with Lysol.
"The more the merrier, I mean I guess just as long as you don't short out whatever you're using," says a sheriff's deputy as he sprays Lysol on a phone.
Brown says, since the h1-n1 vaccine isn't being offered to the jail, the most his staff can do is keep the facility as clean as possible.
So they've seen their everyday cleaning efforts triple.
"We've used a lot of different sanitation measures in each of the cells when people leave, our holding areas and areas where people first come into the jail are sanitized as often, as best we can," said Brown.
Deputies say their biggest concern is when new inmates and visitors come in and out of the jail during the weekends.
Right now, they're just keeping their fingers crossed that the flu doesn't get behind bars...
"We hope that this passes and that will give us an opportunity to relax a little bit, but the fact is that you never know what's around the corner, and there may be something right behind this that we have to train on," Brown said.
By Andy Waterman
awaterman@wsiltv.com
Now: 1258765633
