INTRODUCTION

Winter can mean many things—snow fights, big jackets, or hot chocolate.  Unfortunately, it can also mean an influenza outbreak.  Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is one of the most common infectious diseases in the United States.  On average, the flu infects 10-20% of the United States population and causes approximately 36,000 deaths and 114,000 hospitalizations each year (CDC 2003).

While the people most at risk are the elderly, small children, and those with compromised immune systems, college students also have an increased risk because they live together in a close quarters.  In studies done on the 1978 influenza outbreak on college campuses, college students were found to have a higher incident rate than young adults of the same age who were not in college (Sobal and Lovelace, 1982).

 

WHO ON CAMPUS IS MOST LIKELY TO CATCH THE FLU?

There are some definite trends to the spread of influenza and other similar viruses on college campuses.  Students tend to have a much higher infection rate than faculty; in one study approximately 63% of students were infected, but only approximately 9.5% of the faculty at the same college was (Sobal and Lovelace, 1982).  According to Sobal and Lovelace, this because the students stay at the college not only to attend classes together, but to eat dinner with each other, and sleep in dormitories together.  This repeatedly exposes them to large numbers of potentially infected people. Their professors, on the other hand, return home at the end of the day, where they may not be further exposed to the virus. 

Among students, those that are residential are at a higher risk than those that are not residential, though both groups had high percentages of infected numbers.  Therefore, the scientists concluded that the main spread of the virus is from interaction during the day, such as classes, shared meal times, and transport around campus.  However, the residential students still had a higher infection rate, leading scientists to believe that there was some spread of the virus at night as well due to shared housing (Sobal and Lovelace, 1982).

However, other than that one trait, no other factor seems to significantly influence the spread of the flu.  Sobal and Lovelace found that it does not seem to matter if the victims are male or female, what race they are, which dormitory they live in, which floor of the dormitory they are on, or if they live in fraternity or sorority housing or apartments instead of the traditional dorms.  If a person is living in any type of close quarters with many others, they are at risk for the influenza virus and other viruses.

 

HOW DOES THE FLU SPREAD?

Transmission of the flu happens much the way the spread of most viruses does: close contact with a person who is infected.  In the case of the flu, the virus can be spread when someone sneezes, coughs, or speaks, and another person inhales the viral particles that are in the air.  Another way the virus can be spread is if a person has contact with an object that has the virus on it, such as a table, door handle, or telephone and then touches their nose or mouth (CDC 2003).

While movies such as Outbreak (when the accidental release of a dangerous virus results in nationwide lock-down) may seem far-fetched, it is quite easy to see how any contaigious virus could create a widespread epidemic.  A way to demonstrate this is to hypothesize that three college students become infected due to outside exposure to the virus.  These three people then go to class, thus potentially exposing all the people in their classes to the virus.  Assuming there are four people in each class (though the real number would be much higher) and that each person had four classes a day, each of the three original victims potentially could have infected 48 people by the days end.  Though this model does not take many things into account (such as the fact that many students would be contagious multiple days that they were in school or that not everyone exposed would come down with the virus) there is still enough information to see how a virus such as influenza could strike and spread through a college campus remarkably quickly.

 

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE THE VACCINES?

Many people think that flu vaccines will make you immune to this disease.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  While a vaccine is strongly recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, has a 79-90% success rate among adults (lower in elderly patients or those with chronic illness), and is still considered the best preventative method, it is not a guarantee that a person who has been vaccinated will not be infected. 

There are many reasons for this, but the main problem with flu vaccines is that the flu virus, like all other viruses, commonly undergoes rapid mutation.  This means that the flu changes from year to year, making the previous vaccination almost entirely useless.  The flu can also change during the season itself, so a person who is protected at the start of flu season may find himself infected at the end of the season, when the mutation of the virus has rendered his vaccine ineffective.  Finally, these flu vaccines may not be effective because there are many strains of flu per year.  A vaccination will protect against many of these, but no vaccination is a “blank check.”  In other words, a vaccination is only meant to protect against certain strains and will be almost no defense against the others.

 

HOW CAN YOU AVOID CATCHING THE FLU?

Though the influenza virus can easily cause an epidemic, there are ways to protect yourself.   Even though a flu shot is by no means a guarantee, the Centers For Disease Control still considers it the best preventative measure a person can take to avoid getting the flu.  Another way to decrease your risk of catching the flu is by knowing what it is that spreads the disease: close contact with an infected person or objects an infected person has touched.  While total isolation from flu victims is not realistic on a college campus, people can greatly reduce their risk by noticing which people are sick and (if possible) staying away from them.  If that is not possible, the best thing people can do is to wash their hands frequently, and especially after touching something that someone who is sick could have touched, such as a public computer, a door handle, or the tables in the dining hall.  The reason washing hands is a good preventative method is because a person will not get sick just from having the flu virus on their skin (unless the skin is cut or somehow the tissue underneath the skin is exposed) because the virus on the hands must travel to an open area of the body to cause infection.  By washing hands before the virus has a chance to spread to the nose or mouth, the risk of catching the flu will greatly decrease.

No one is ever completely safe against any illness, much less the flu.  However, if you get a flu shot every year, avoid infected people when possible, and wash hands frequently, you will greatly decrease your risk of contacting the virus.

 

 

Source Texts:

Unknown Author.  2003.  “Flu News.”  Centers for Disease Control.  Online: 

            http://www.cdc.gov/nip/Flu/News.htm

 

Sobal, Jeff and Loveland, Frank C.  1982.  “Infectious Disease in a Total

            Institution: A Study of the Influenza Epidemic of 1978 on a College

            Campus.”  Public Health Reports, January-February 1982, Vol. 97, No. 1.

 

Additional Readings:

Evans, A.S. et.al.  1971.  “Prospective studies of a Group of Yale University Freshmen. 

            II. Occurrence of Acute Respiratory Infections and Rubella.”  The Journal of

            Infectious Diseases, March 1971, Vol. 123, No. 3.

 

Teare, E.L, Rawes, C.L., Chakraverty, P. et.al. 1990.  “Failure of influenza vaccine to            prevent two successive outbreaks of influenza A H1N1 in a school community.”            British Journal of General Practice, January 1990, Vol. 40, Pages 10-12.