As students return to their campuses for the start of the spring semester, colleges are bracing for what federal health officials predict could be a particularly severe flu season.
Two dozen states are already reporting high levels of “influenzalike illness,” and all but three states and the District of Columbia show widespread flu, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On some campuses, health officials are preparing for the worst. They’re paying close attention to the number of documented flu cases, and some are submitting data to the CDC as part of a national surveillance program.
They’re also trying mightily to prevent new cases, by administering last-minute flu shots; encouraging students still on break to get vaccinated at home; handing out fliers and posting signs to urge students, faculty, and staff to cover their coughs and sneezes; and issuing repeated instructions for anybody feeling sick to stay home. One college has posted a giant sign outside its health center that simply reads: “Wash Your Hands.”
“We want to be completely ready for this,” said Steven Radi, medical director at the State University of New York at Geneseo, where classes resume next week. Monitoring weekly statistics from the county health department, Dr. Radi has noticed a recent spike in flu cases. He’s fairly certain, he said, that the illness will soon make its way to the campus.
Last semester at Geneseo, well in advance of the start of flu season, campus health practitioners urged students to get flu shots: About 700 of 5,000 did.
Now that flu season is under way, Dr. Radi and his colleagues elsewhere said they planned to shift their efforts from encouraging vaccinations to emphasizing how to stay healthy and what students should do if they get sick. The answer: Come to the health center, and don’t go to class.
The aggressive push on many campuses to administer flu shots last semester should pay off, officials said. This year’s vaccine is reported to be a good match with the strain of influenza, H3N2, that has sickened people around the country.
A Good Match
The vaccine’s effectiveness rate, according to the CDC, is around 60 percent. That means that of people who have been vaccinated, about 60 percent will have enough of an antibody response to be fully protected against the virus, said Sarah Van Orman, executive director of University Health Services at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
“It’s as good a match as you get,” said Dr. Van Orman, who is also vice president of the American College Health Association. At Madison, she said, health officials have given flu shots to nearly 10,000 students on a campus of 42,000.
Generally, the 18-to-24 age group has one of the lowest vaccination rates, only 10 percent, she said. This flu season, the CDC reported, about one in three adults had gotten a flu shot as of November.
At residential colleges, where students live in close proximity—whether on or off the campus—and gather in classrooms and other common spaces, flu prevention and control are particularly important, health officials said. The traditional college-age population tends to be in good health, but some students’ meager sleep and nutrition can make them more vulnerable to the flu, Dr. Radi said.
At Meredith College, a women’s institution in Raleigh, N.C., campus officials are replicating preparations for 2009’s H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu. As they did three years ago, said Ann Gleason, dean of students, officials have set aside a block of rooms in a residence hall as a de facto infirmary should students become sick and need to recover in a place where they won’t contaminate others. Tissues, care packages, and meals from dining services will be provided, she said, along with rigorous cleaning once students vacate the rooms.
In the meantime, this week will bring a final round of flu shots at Meredith, followed by constant reminders about hand washing and staying home if the flu strikes, Ms. Gleason said. The philosophy behind those messages is simple, she said: “Please don’t share the germs.”
