Flu hits UVA

By Brian McNeill, Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: February 5, 2008

Nearly 300 University of Virginia students have been stricken with the flu in recent weeks, an outbreak health officials call the biggest since the mid-1990s.

“We haven’t seen an outbreak as significant as this one in years,” said Dr. James C. Turner, executive director of UVa’s Elson Student Health Center.

Since Jan. 21, at least 281 UVa students have sought treatment for flu symptoms, including temperatures of 104 degrees, chills, sore throat and a general feeling of nastiness.

“It basically makes you feel like you got run over by a truck,” Turner said.

UVa students are hardly the only population suffering from influenza in the state. The Virginia Department of Health declared two weeks ago that the flu had officially gone “widespread” - a level not reached in 2007 until mid-February.

“Basically, the flu has hit every corner of the state,” said Roy Crewz, senior epidemiologist for the Thomas Jefferson Health District. “It’s hit hard and it’s hit fast.”

When Virginia declares that flu is “widespread,” it means that at least half the state’s jurisdictions are reporting significant increases in cases or outbreaks of flu.

“If you’ve ever had it, you know that the flu can be really debilitating,” Crewz said.

Eleven states are reporting “widespread” flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to Virginia, they are Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.

At UVa, 25 students with flu-like symptoms visited the student health center over the holidays. Then, five days after students returned from break in mid-January, the number of cases suddenly “exploded,” Turner said.

Every weekend since the initial wave of flu cases, 15 to 20 students with influenza have visited the emergency room at the UVa Medical Center, Turner said.

William Brady, vice chairman of emergency medicine at UVa, said the emergency room has not seen an unusual number of flu cases so far in 2008. However, he added, over the past two or three weeks, the number of cases has jumped sharply.

“It was almost like an on-and-off switch,” Brady said.

According to the CDC, people who come down with the flu should rest, drink plenty of fluids, avoid alcohol and tobacco, and take medication to relieve the symptoms.

Anecdotally, he said, UVa’s emergency room is seeing a substantial number of patients with flu symptoms. “Working over the weekend, we saw many, many cases,” he said.

Flu shots are still available for UVa students at the Elson Student Health Center. For the general public, the shots are available at the Thomas Jefferson Health District at a cost of $15. Most family doctors also offer flu shots.

So far this season, the UVa student health center has doled out 3,500 shots. The Thomas Jefferson Health District, meanwhile, has given more than 2,000 shots. Both figures are not significantly different from past flu seasons, health officials said.