Campus Housing enacts preventative measures

Fear of flu leads to new policy to keep campus healthy Read more

CHIEF INSIGHT:
Prevent the flu with a little common sense

Noticed the empty seat or two in class last week? Has someone’s persistent, hacking cough interrupted your study session at the Lied Library?

Or are you the one with the cough, reading this column from between the sheets at home, with tissues and throat lozenges handy?

Yep, the flu’s going around yet again. Condolences if you’re in that third category.

Earlier this semester, I was out for more than a week with the flu. Since then, I’ve seen friends and coworkers go through the same ordeal – a forced week off, experiencing the varied degrees of horridness that the flu virus induces.

Swine flu, which some have blamed for a particularly early and strong start to flu season this year, has been getting all the media buzz – but it’s important to realize that any kind of flu is contagious, dangerous, and if not you’re careful, deadly.

The danger swine flu presents is not that it is necessarily any more likely to kill you, but rather, the strain is particularly contagious. An article in the online journal “Veterinary Sciences Tomorrow,” by flu researcher Paul Heinen, suggests that an earlier human immunity to swine flu waned over the years, leaving us particularly vulnerable to catching the strain in the present day.

I was fortunate to notice the symptoms of my flu early enough to isolate myself from the rest of the world to prevent spreading the bug and take extra care in hope that I’d recover a bit sooner. Even with all sorts of precaution, it was still a pretty wretched week or so – and ultimately, some of the people I went out of my way to not get sick have still caught the flu elsewhere.

The magnitude of flu symptoms can vary among individuals – national media outlets have already reported a handful of college students dying of the illness during flu season. Any effort to prevent such a tragedy from occurring is a worthwhile effort – it is important, as a university community, to be responsible and take steps to prevent spreading the illness. The flu situation may seem dire because of these reports, but it’s not absolutely dismal.

The New York Times reports that students at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. have been warned against playing beer pong, as sharing cups in the social drinking game is a (bafflingly obvious) way of spreading flu and other illness.

More subtle actions could possibly spread the disease – which is why more “common-sense” actions are essential to making sure you don’t catch the bug yourself. The Student Health Center recommends washing hands, using alcohol-based hand cleaners and looking into whether your health care provider offers vaccinations. Although vaccine clinics at UNLV have already come and gone, local supermarkets, pharmacies and medical clinics continue to offer them. Swine flu vaccinations have also recently become available in Clark County.

If you start showing symptoms, isolating yourself is essential to prevent spreading the disease. This means staying away from class, work, intramurals, socials, service projects, going out – any kind of personal interaction has to be minimized.

Of course, in addition to preventing yourself from spreading the disease, you should take care of yourself to ensure a prompt recovery. This may sound like common wisdom, but it bears repetition, especially in a worse-than-usual flu season: Hydration, nourishment and rest are the key to overcoming the flu.

The Student Health Center Web site, in a special flu section, has a list of steps to follow, should your condition worsen.

Please take the extra effort this flu season to be cautious and ensure that our campus is a healthy campus.

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