H1N1 makes its way to OU

With the school year in full swing, OU is taking steps to keep students educated on Swine Flu, and the symp­toms associated with it.”I do think students are overreacting, but it’s a good thing because they’re getting helped (if they are sick),” Jac­queline Robinson, Resi­dent Assistant, said.However, Swine Flu vi­ruses normally do not in­fect humans. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, only one human every one to two years was infected. Before the outbreak, there were only 12 human cases from Dec. 2005 to Feb. 2009.Because most bodies nev­er have been infected with H1N1 before, immune sys­tems can’t be resistant to it. The CDC also reports that there are four differ­ent drugs licensed for the treatment of H1N1: aman­tadine, rimantadine, os­eltamivir and zanamivir.”I’m in contact with a lot of students, so I’m worried about getting it,” Robinson said. “But since it’s just like the regular flu if you get it, there’s not a lot you can do.”The symptoms for Swine Flu are similar to the regu­lar flu, which include fever, headache, chills, extreme tiredness, sore throat, muscle aches, runny or stuffy nose and dry cough.Just like the common flu, H1N1 can be transferred the same way. ‘High traffic’ areas on campus are a breeding ground for fomites, a germ that can be anywhere from your skin, to your hair and even your sheets.A keyboard in the Mac lab could carry up to 3,295 germs per square inch. A desk could carry up to 20,961 fomites per inch and a phone 25,127, ac­cording to a study done by Pure O Zone.Alcohol-based hand sanitizers and personal hygiene are the first steps students can take in pre­venting the flu and killing these fomites from spread­ing to other surfaces.Released prior to the Swine Flu information meeting Aug. 27, Provost Dennis Tyner sent out a campus wide e-mail en­couraging the campus community to be aware of their health.”Whether teaching a course or being enrolled as a student, we are often too focused on the impor­tance of attending classes and we sometimes ignore flu symptoms that we are experiencing,” Tyner said.”I would ask that dur­ing this school year you be more cogni­zant of your health and seek medical attention from our school nurse if you begin suffering any flu-like symptoms.”Also helping in provid­ing students with H1N1 information is Dave Ross, representative for Pure O Zone, who recently has partnered with Ottawa University.In the informational meeting, both Ross and Tyner spoke about how H1N1 is contracted and how to prevent it from spreading.”We’ve taken a lot of proactive steps to prevent (H1N1) from campus,” Tyner said at the H1N1 in­formational session in the Chapel.”Isolate yourself in you are diagnosed, we ask (those infected) to contact their RA or RA immedi­ately and we will help you find your way off cam­pus.”However, with many H1N1 cases in Franklin County and in neighbor­ing schools, it’s difficult to say how fast the flu will mutate.”If it gets to a point where (H1N1) is bad, we will shut down the cam­pus,” Tyner said at the meeting. “It will spread like wildfire, we want to avoid that.”Students are strongly encouraged to go see the school nurse if they are feeling symptoms.”We’re here to help you, and we’re here to help everyone else to remain a healthy campus,” Tyner adds.In an e-mail sent to stu­dents on Aug. 31, Tyner formally announced the first non-residential stu­dent diagnosed with H1N1. The student was isolated and was in quar­antine at home for 72 hours after fever breaks.The student has recovered and currently is attending classes. No other cases of H1N1 have been an­nounced on OU’s campus.