Influenza!
JMU prepares for possibility flu pandemic
By Katie Kellogg, senior writer
Posted on October 5, 2006

University and college representatives across the state were warned that Virginia’s higher education institutions are not prepared to deal with a pandemic flu outbreak at a recent conference on pandemic flu planning sponsored by the College Communication Association at the University of Richmond.

Marsha Mays-Bernard for Multi-Cultural Awareness and Student Health at JMU said, “No one is fully prepared, but we are all in the planning process, which is the positive aspect.”

Mays-Bernard, who attended the conference, said JMU has been planning for the possibility of a pandemic since last year, and has developed a task force to plan for the potential of a pandemic. The task force is made of 17 different departments, each representing a different area of the university such as the health center, Dining Services and Residence Life. Each department has a team devoted to working on plans specific to their department in the event of a pandemic.

Mays-Bernard said JMU is planning for various progressive levels of a pandemic ranging from “Phase I,” which is planning for an outbreak, all the way up to dealing with an actual pandemic.

“With every day that passes, and as additional information is given to us, planning becomes more complete and continuous,” Mays-Bernard said.

A flu pandemic differs from seasonal flu outbreaks in that a pandemic means there is a global outbreak of the disease. A pandemic arises when a new strain of the influenza virus develops and people have little or no immunity to the virus, causing it to spread easily.

Unlike the regular flu, current vaccines would not be effective for pandemic flu because pandemic flu would be of a different strain of the influenza virus.

Scientists are now monitoring the avian flu, which is not easily transferable from human to human, but could continue to evolve and spread among humans, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

A flu pandemic could have devastating effects on the state of Virginia. Shannon Marshall, public relations coordinator of the Office of Epidemiology for the Virginia Department of Health said estimates suggest in the event of a pandemic, there could be 2,700 to 6,300 deaths, 12,000 to 28,000 hospitalizations and between 1.08 million to 2.52 million people becoming infected.

The Virginia Department of Health said the current risk for a flu pandemic in Virginia is low, but scientists said it is only a matter of time before another flu pandemic hits. There were three pandemic flu outbreaks in the 20th century.

The Virginia Department of Health has been preparing for the possibility of a flu pandemic for the last several years and developed a pandemic flu response plan in 2002. In 2005 the Department of Health also created a “pandemic flu advisory team” to help develop strategies to develop plans for a pandemic flu in Virginia.

“[Pandemic flu] is something that we should all prepare for,” Marshall said.

Mays-Bernard said preparation is essential. “The better prepared we are to help ourselves and implement the directions we are given, we are that much more ahead and the better off we will be.”

While state officials and JMU prepare for the possibility of a pandemic flu outbreak, some students are not concerned about the issue.

“I don’t really worry about it because you would never think it would happen in our area,” sophomore Alison Adler said.