Flu Patients Flock to UHS

This year’s flu season seems to be affecting an unusually high number of students, according to officials at University Health Services (UHS).

Flu symptoms, which include aches, nausea, and fatigue, last for around five days, and have so far affected a “significant number” of students, UHS Director Dr. David Rosenthal ’59 wrote in an e-mail.

Towards the end of last week, UHS saw between seven and ten cases a day—as many as normally expected for one week during the winter, Rosenthal wrote.

Health professionals said they could not explain why this winter has seen a large incidence of flu or flu-like diseases.

The College had experienced another bout of stomach infection—gastroenteritis—earlier this year, when around 15 students in Cabot House contracted a 24-hour virus.

This time, Rosenthal wrote, the infection is again “probably viral” but the students admitted to UHS have been “from all over campus.”

Morgan L. Haven-Tietze ’08, a Pforzheimer resident, said she has been suffering from the flu for the past several days.“It’s pretty devastating,” she rasped.

She said that when she visited UHS, she was told that “lots and lots” of cases had been seen.

From the other end of campus, Mather resident Anant A. Thaker ’06, who said he was bedridden with illness for most of last week, told a similar story.

“They gave the impression they’ve had quite a few flu cases in the past few weeks,” said Thaker, who said he went to UHS after the first few days of his sickness.

While the Boston Public Health Commission issued a health warning in January claiming an increase in the number of cases of gastroenteritis in the city, Cambridge has not reported a similar trend.

Louise Rice, Senior Director of Public Health Services at the Cambridge Public Health Department, said that she had not been informed about an outbreak at Harvard.

Meanwhile, students are struggling to accommodate illness in their busy schedules.

Thaker, a senior, was struck by the illness a few weeks before his thesis was due.

“I had a fever about 103 or 104. I was really weak and I had a lot of body aches so that kept me from working or leaving the room. And I was still contagious,” he said, adding that he has recovered fully. “Four days is quite a setback,” he said. “It was bad timing.”

Haven-Tietze said that instructors have been sympathetic in allowing her to miss class.

“As long as you have the magic note, you’re good,” she said.

Or before relying on the doctor’s note, students can always try prevention.

Both Rice and Rosenthal stressed the importance of hand-washing and good hygiene to prevent infection.

Infections are easily transmitted in enclosed spaces such as university dormitories, according to Rice.

—Staff writer John R. Macartney can be reached at jmacartn@fas.harvard.edu.