Swine Flu hits close to home

This week at GCSU, students have been experiencing first hand the effects of the H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year in the United States, on average, 200,000 people are hospitalized due to the seasonal flu and 36,000 die from complications.

Swine flu is already racking up numbers. As of Aug. 27, there were over 8,843 hospitalized cases of swine flu and 556 deaths nationwide.

GCSU Coordinator for Emergency Preparedness and Occupational Safety, Justin Gaines, spoke about the dangers associated with H1N1 influenza during an Aug. 26 flu forum.

“Within two weeks this virus traveled from Mexico to the Outback of Australia, and that’s extremely fast,” Gaines said. “One of the characteristics of this flu is that it can spread quickly, but with that it is not any deadlier than the seasonal influenza.”

Swine flu has not been a major problem so far in the United States, but it is expected to worsen in the coming months.

GCSU’s Pandemic Response Team have advised professors to be prepared for a reduced workforce, as well as to come up with assignments students can do outside of the classroom.

Other universities are also addressing this issue. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Emory University has designated a separate dorm in which they have already moved about 50 students that have contracted the swine flu.

Symptoms of the flu

So far this semester 10 GCSU students were sent home with flu-like symptoms, and Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 another 23 students were sent home.

The symptoms of swine flu are similar to the symptoms of the seasonal flu. Typical symptoms of the illness are chills, fever, cough, sore throat, headache, body aches, stuffy nose, exhaustion, and occasionally nausea and vomiting.

Director of Student Health Services Alice Loper said she’s seeing the number of patients being treated going up each day due to the scare.

“I think students are worried,” Loper said. “We have seen a significant increase in the number of people we have seen. Last August (2008) we saw 400 students and this August it was around 730.”

GCSU does not test to determine if a person has the H1N1 flu strain; testing for swine flu can only be done once hospitalized.

Preventative measures

Since the CDC estimates that nearly 27 percent of people ages 5 to 25 will contract swine flu, the school is taking precautions to avoid an outbreak.

The majority of healthy adults can infect others one day before symptoms appear and up to five days after becoming sick.

The best way to help prevent the flu is to get a flu shot, according to the CDC. Most do not protect against the H1N1 virus but a vaccine that does is expected to be released by the CDC in October.

Flu shots were distributed last week on campus and all 250 doses were given within the first two days.

Sophomore exercise science major Ashley Kanak is playing it safe.

“I got my flu shot but other than that I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary,” Kanak said. “I’m trying to avoid people who are sick, washing my hands a lot. I’m just doing the normal things you do during the flu season.”

There is more to preventing the flu than just vaccinations.

Gaines and the Pandemic Response Team will be holding flu forums to educate the campus and have been brainstorming new ways to keep the GCSU community informed and healthy.

“We are buying hand sanitizers and are going to place them at strategic locations around campus such as shuttle busses, the Info Tech Center and the business office,” he said. “Our custodians are changing a bit of their cleaning practices for us.

They are going to start or to continue- but do it more often- to clean the doorknobs and handles, things like that to help keep the virus from spreading.”

Students are also finding their own ways of prevention like boosting their immune system.

“The only thing I’m doing different is drinking orange juice like it’s my job,” said sophomore English major Will Lewis.

Sleeping the recommended seven to nine hours, exercising regularly, eating balanced meals and reducing stress are all ways students can boost their immune systems.

Practicing good hygiene- washing hands, using hand sanitizer and avoiding touching facial areas- is essential to flu prevention.

The CDC has recommended something called “social distancing” which means, in essence, staying away from physical contact with other people.

Stay calm

Loper says there is no reason for students to panic.

“We are encouraging students to be vigilant about it,” Loper said. “So far the cases have been fairly mild but there have been deaths around the world.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 4 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry