American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday in response to the confirmation of several cases of swine influenza A (swine flu) in the United States. According to The New York Times, 149 people have been killed from the disease in Mexico as of Monday afternoon. While none of the cases in the United States have been fatal, the declaration of a health emergency is a preparatory measure, so that the government will be prepared should the situation worsen.
Dr. Davis Smith, Medical Director of Health Services at Wesleyan, wrote an e-mail to the Argus explaining the steps that the University is taking as the situation unfolds.
“Wesleyan University is monitoring the situation and is in communication with state and national public health authorities as well as networks of college health professionals,” Smith wrote.
The plan that he outlined for the time being includes efforts to closely monitor the situation and respond on a case-by-case basis.
“Things are changing rapidly,” he said. “We all need to stay calm and pay attention as data comes in and the approach is modified accordingly.”
The health center is open to evaluate individual students and test anyone who is concerned that they may be coming down with swine flu. An all-campus e-mail was sent yesterday informing students of the University’s preparations.
The swine flu strain that is currently spreading is worrisome because it is a new strain that people do not have a natural immunity to, and therefore has potential for rapid spread. Smith, however, does not believe that the speed of the disease’s spread alone is cause for alarm.
“If it had mass pandemic spread but the cases remained mild, we wouldn’t necessarily need to do anything drastic,” he said. Currently, there are only 40 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States, with the majority occurring in a school in New York City. While more cases of swine flu are expected, nearly all of the cases so far have been mild.
In case the situation does become more serious and swine flu spreads to Connecticut, Wesleyan does appear to have a pandemic plan in place.
“In the event the situation becomes more serious we will communicate through the emergency notification system to advise the campus community of necessary steps,” Smith wrote.
The health department has a number of emergency response strategies prepared for various health situations, including a plan to deal with an influenza epidemic. In a worse case scenario where the disease did spread and cases were severe, Smith mentioned the possibility of banning close gatherings of large groups of people, or potentially even closing the school. But none of these are likely to be implemented in the near future.
“There is no cause for panic,” Smith wrote.
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Lisa Currie
WesWELL, the Office of Health Education also has an information page on H1N1 Influenza (Swine Flu) here: http://www.wesleyan.edu/weswell/atoz/swine_flu.html