Student Health Service Laurel Hall
Ph: 302-831-2226
Fax:
302-831-6407
E-mail: studenthealth@udel.edu
SWINE FLU
The notorious and unwelcome Novel H1N1 Influenza Virus (Swine Flu) visited the Newark campus in April and May. The Student Health Service (SHS) and the University administration in cooperation with the Delaware Division of Public Health and guidance of Center for Disease Control (CDC) responded quickly, efficiently and responsibly to this outbreak. During that time the CDC sent a team of physicians and researchers who resided in the SHS for 4 weeks to completely assess and evaluate this response. Several CDC research abstracts were completed or are in progress to be presented or published on the University ‘s response. Although several hundred students were sick during this outbreak, fortunately the vast majority of those diagnosed with flu had mild illness that was no more serious than seasonal flu. Meanwhile, the swine flu virus has continued to spread throughout the world as well as several US universities this summer.
In Preparation for the fall semester return of this illness the SHS will again work collectively and follow the recommendations of the State of Delaware Public Health and the CDC. The CDC has provided specific information on the following:
What to do if you get flu- like symptoms
Questions and Answers regarding H1N1
The SHS is a sentinel site for monitoring Influenza Like Illness and for reporting illness patterns to the State Division of Public Health. The SHS will also be providing flu vaccine clinics for both the seasonal flu virus as well as the vaccine for H1N1 when this vaccine becomes available from the State of Delaware.
The SHS is open 24/7 when the residence halls are open and will continue to evaluate and treat student patients based on current CDC guidelines of treatment by practitioners.