Thirty-four students report cases of flu-like illnesses

Correction appended

Thirty-four undergraduate and graduate students and one dependent have self-reported cases of flu-like illnesses, University spokeswoman Emily Aronson said on Wednesday, adding that the University has taken steps to prevent the spread of swine flu on campus with an e-mail Wednesday morning to students listing several health and hygiene guidelines.

Of the 34 “generally mild” cases, 15 were reported by students who participated in or led Community Action or Outdoor Action programs.

The number of cases among faculty and staff members was not readily available because employees are advised to report their condition to their personal physician and not University Health Services (UHS).

The outbreak is not the first instance when the administration has had concerns about swine flu on campus. In early June, three graduate students and one graduate dependent tested positive for novel H1N1. The four individuals first contacted UHS early in the week of May 25 and “remained in isolation” until they were no longer contagious.

Following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the University has asked students who feel ill to call UHS instead of visiting it to avoid spreading the flu. UHS has also asked students to confidentially report any pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma or diabetes. Such information would be critical in the event of a more severe outbreak.

“We’ve been gratified that most of the guidance coming out now parallels policies that we’ve begun developing throughout the summer,” Aronson said.

These policies include asking sick students to self-isolate, notifying individuals those students have had close contact with of their condition and, in certain cases, asking students who live within 200 miles of the University to recover at home.

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“This could be a critical health concern for their classmates with pre-existing medical conditions,” Aronson said. “Self-isolating when ill is a matter of social responsibility to protect the most vulnerable members of our community, which include the many people on campus who may be at higher risk for serious complications from flu.”

Healthy students with pre-existing medical conditions who have a roommate with a flu-like illness will be relocated to buildings across campus based on room vacancies. As of Tuesday, no relocation requests had been received.

Aronson said that under the self-isolation guideline, students would be asked to call upon friends to deliver meals to their dorm room.

College students are widely considered to be at a high risk for contracting the flu, and the University has planned accordingly in the event of an outbreak. The number of cases on campus remains relatively small compared to many other colleges and universities, some of which have seen hundreds of cases of flu-like illness. And on Sept. 11, the death of a student at Cornell marked the third H1N1-related death among college students in the United States.

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While some students on college campuses have imposed a temporary moratorium on social events, University officials said that all activities are preceding normally until the number of students or employees who are ill begins to impact operations. At that point, they added, they will reassess the situation.

“While we have the 34 cases so far, it doesn’t mean that students should be complacent about reporting it if they start to feel sick or following the guidelines,” Aronson explained. “We still have to see how flu will emerge on our campus once classes start and when the traditional flu season begins.”

According to the website of the American College Health Association, there are an average of 21.5 cases of flu-like illness nationwide per 10,000 students.

Rachel Nesbitt ’10, who worked with Community Action this summer and volunteered to deliver food from dining halls to isolated sick students, said not all students wore masks when she came to their rooms and questioned the practice of being asked to carry the proxes of sick students to the dining hall.

Nesbitt also suggested that RCAs or residential college staff members deliver food to the students, especially for freshmen who are “still making friends” and who may not feel comfortable asking someone to leave their meals outside their door.

“That way [sick students] are still being cared for and are valued members of the community and not like a leper,” she said. “The University should tell students that it’s just protocol. Isolating a student is kind of an extreme measure … They’re just assuming that any students with multiple concurrent symptoms have the swine flu, and they don’t test.”

Aronson explained that the CDC stopped testing for the H1N1 virus because of the spread of the virus in the United States and that the University was following guidelines in not testing.

Julie Hwang ’13 said she was in isolation for roughly two-and-a-half days, adding that she thinks she caught the flu either from her father in California or during her flight to Princeton.

Hwang recalled that, while she was in isolation, she was lonely and almost went insane — spending much of her time vacuuming or on Facebook. She added that she thought the University went a “little overboard” with six different University members calling her every day, on top of hourly phone calls from her parents, because she had a “borderline” 100.3-degree fever.

“I felt like a princess,” she said, adding that she received the standard flu kit for students only on the second day of isolation. This kit includes a face mask as well as temperature dots, hand sanitizer, tissues and an instructional flier.

“They gave me [the kit] near the end of the second day, and no one told me I should wear [the mask] when I went out, so I never did,” she said.

She rejoined her Community Action group in Trenton for the final two days of pre-orientation activities, but Hwang said that since she was still coughing a bit, it took a long time for other students to accept that she was no longer contagious.

During her isolation, Hwang met Victor Li ’13 of New Zealand, who was also isolated in his room after developing flu-like symptoms.

Li lost his voice in his second day at Princeton and said he originally suspected it was due to jet lag. Two days later, however, he began coughing and, since he was getting ready to join his Community Action trip, he decided to get screened at McCosh Health Center. UHS prescribed Dayquil and Nyquil, but Li said the medicines did not alleviate his symptoms, and after the first day of Community Action, he developed a fever and was put in isolation for four days. His group leader also had a fever, he said, and two other students on the trip developed flu-like symptoms. One of them was asked to return home and later said she had a confirmed case of the swine flu after being tested by her personal physician, Li said.

Students abroad for the summer were also affected by the international spread of the disease.

Shannon Mercer ’11 was one of two Princeton students who were quarantined abroad for a week in June at the American University of Cairo’s Zemalak dormitory, where the Egyptian Ministry of Health had already identified five cases of the swine flu. She said her experience in quarantine allowed her to bond with her classmates. Though it turned out that she and the other Princeton student were both healthy, the ministry believed all of the students in the dormitory needed to be quarantined in the event that they were contagious.

Mercer said her experience in quarantine allowed her to bond with her classmates. “I had nothing to complain about except that I was shut in a building for a week.”

She said the swine flu hasn’t been a topic of conversation among friends, but she added that she is optimistic everything will be OK at Princeton.

“I haven’t witnessed any form of mass panic,” Mercer explained, “and I think people are getting used to the idea that there is a flu and that it will probably hit a number of people on campus when school is in full force and the weather starts getting colder.”

Correction

An earlier version of this article stated that healthy students with sick roommates will be temporarily relocated. In fact, only students with pre-existing medical conditions will be relocated.