Rash of Recent Asian Flu Cases Might Herald Another Epidemic

University doctors are now waiting to see whether the sudden rise of flu cases admitted to the Health Center this weekend is a forerunner of bigger things to come--possibly an Asian flu epidemic like the ones now rampant in North Carolina and Vermont.

Extra beds accommodated the weekend peak of 45 patients, of whom about 25 had uniform flu symptoms. Since Monday this influx has dropped off sharply, however, with only two patients admitted in the last few days. The average number of patients for the usually unhealthy February to May season is about 25.

Although the doctors are fairly certain that a further wave of cases is on the way, they see no evidence that there will be another epidemic as large as the one at Harvard in 1957.

Experiments have not yet been completed in Health Center laboratories to determine whether the local influenza germ is the A2 variety, known as "Asian." (It was called "Spanish" near the turn of the century.) When this is done, later in the week, the University will report the situation to the Massachusetts Department of Health.

Dr. Curtis Prout, Associate Director of the University Health Services, stated that the current situation is "certainly not panic-making." The cases reported so far have been extremely mild, with an average duration of only four days. And the weekend influx was not of major proportions. Dr. Prout stressed the fact that 45 patients were drawn from a potential community of 21,000 people.

Flu symptoms include "aching all over, sore throat, dry cough, headache, and wishing you were dead," said Dr. Prout.

The great abundance of coughs and colds around the school is usual for the season, Dr. Prout continued, but not . When it was mentioned to him that in Tuesday's Soc Sci 2 lecture there were 276 distinct coughing or sneezing fits, he replied that these were probably ordinary winter colds.