Reserve space to sequester ill
A bottle of hand sanitizer and a sign about swine flu sat at a window last week in front of Marilyn Hallam at the health center at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. (Mike Fuentes/Associated Press) With thousands of college students flooding New England campuses this week, universities are taking unprecedented measures to contain possible outbreaks of influenza, knowing that young adults sit squarely in the bull’s-eye of susceptibility to swine flu.
The new and swiftly spreading flu strain is already spawning waves of illness at Southern universities that began classes last month. And with a swine flu vaccine not expected to land at campus clinics until mid-October at the soonest, university leaders in Massachusetts are weighing a range of precautions, from isolating feverish students in makeshift sick bays to canceling hallowed traditions such as ice cream socials.
At Boston University, five dozen dorm rooms have been reserved for coughing, aching, shivering students beset by the flu - and if things get really bad, a barracks-style infirmary will arise on a stretch of gymnasium floor.
At Emerson College, ailing stu dents confined to their quarters will have food delivered to their door in the form of Feeling Blue Meals - for breakfast, it’s oatmeal, toast, and juice.
At Mount Holyoke College, students are being advised that if they fall ill, hail from within 250 miles, and can catch a ride, there’s one place they should head - home to their parents.
“We’re expecting we are going to see an influx of sick people as more and more come on campus,’’ said Dr. David Rosenthal, director of health services at Harvard University, whose Longwood medical campus recorded Boston’s first cases of swine flu last April. “There’s a lot of fervor out there, and what we’re trying to do is prepare for the worst but keep people as calm as possible.’’
At Harvard and other colleges in the Northeast, where classes usually resume after Labor Day, the threat of flu-addled students has not yet become reality. But at Emory University in Atlanta, at least 50 sick students have been consigned to a dorm left vacant to shelter the ailing.
And at the University of Virginia, the health service had diagnosed 27 students with flu by Thursday. That stunned Dr. James Turner, director of Virginia’s Department of Student Health, who has spent 25 years tending to students on college campuses. “I’ve never seen a flu season ever in September,’’ said Turner, who is also president of the American College Health Association. “I use the word ‘explosive’ to describe it. I don’t recall flu that appears and spreads so rapidly.’’
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