Feeling sick? You’ve got lots of company

By KATHERINE CALOS, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: February 6, 2008

Influenza is here, there and everywhere, it seems. After all, it’s February.

State health officials expect a spike in flulike illnesses in January and February. This year, they got it.

The most dramatic outbreak appears to be at the University of Virginia, where more than 300 students have contracted flu during the past few weeks, according to U.Va. officials.

James Turner, head of the Elson Student Health Center, said the outbreak began about Jan. 20, shortly after students returned from winter break. Turner said the students went home to 50 states and some foreign countries, and “they bring it back.

“We’ve had it grow explosively,“ Turner said. “What we’re emphasizing now is for students to get their flu shots.“

The bug is biting at Virginia Commonwealth University, too.

VCU’s student-health centers already have treated 41 students for flu or upper-respiratory viruses this month, which is less than a week old, compared with 57 cases in all of the last student year.

“There has been an increase, markedly,“ VCU spokeswoman Pamela Lepley said.

At the University of Richmond, two student-health doctors are taking 40 to 50 phone calls and seeing about 50 patients a day, an uptick that began about a week and a half ago, spokeswoman Linda Evans said. “Most of [the callers] are having flu symptoms,“ she said.

At Virginia Tech, the Schiffert Health Center has seen an increase in the number of students reporting flu symptoms, but the number is not out of the ordinary for this time of the year, Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski said.

Health officials in Hampton Roads report low flu activity.

Richmond-area Patient First medical centers have seen the average number of flu cases increase from three to four a week to six to eight cases a day, spokesman Jim Schulenberg said.

Influenza, commonly called flu, is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms include rapid onset, fever, dry cough, marked malaise, headaches and body aches, said Dr. Frank Tortorella, director of employee health services for the VCU Health System.

“Lots of things are called flu that may not be flu,“ he said. “They are flulike but not flu.“

The only way to diagnose influenza is to do a lab test, which many people don’t bother with when they’re sick.

As a result, “we never know how many people have influenza,“ said epidemiologist Diane Woolard, director of the Virginia Department of Health’s division of surveillance and investigation. “We track flulike illness and changes over time. Is it going up or going down in different regions?“

Virginia has been reporting widespread flu activity—the highest of four possible flu-activity levels—since mid-January, according to the Health Department surveillance report.

Compared with last year, that’s a few weeks earlier, said Laura Ann Nicolai, epidemiologist for the state Health Department’s immunization division.

Nicolai said the department has reports of flu outbreaks at two nursing homes, one each in the central and eastern regions of the state.

The changeable weather of late—balmy one day, freezing the next—doesn’t have any effect on catching flu, Tortorella said.

Cold weather does favor the virus, however, according to a study last year at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Researchers determined the virus is able to stay stable and remain aloft longer in cold and dry air.

If you’re worried, it’s not too late to get a flu vaccine. You’ll need 10 days to two weeks before it’s effective, but flu season can continue until May.

Those who’ve been exposed to flu, possibly because family members are sick, can take a pre-emptive step to stay healthy. Get a prescription for the anti-viral medicine that treats flu and you can decrease the odds of catching the illness, said Dr. Thomas Murphy at Patient First.

For the rest of us, the advice is the same as ever: Avoid close contact with sick people, wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and don’t touch your eyes, nose or mouth.

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or .

Staff writers Bill Geroux, A.J. Hostetler, Lawrence Latané III, Michael Martz, Carlos Santos and Tammie Smith contributed to this report.