UNM is preparing for an H1N1 outbreak.
The Student Health and Counseling Center, Provost’s Office and University Hospital, among others, are working together to combat the virus.
The group has asked faculty to keep track of students’ reasons for being absent.
English professor James Burbank said he received several e-mails concerning H1N1 preparation from his department chair.
“The announcements have asked us to keep track of absences in class and to report if over 40 percent of the class is missing,” Burbank said. “They also said to keep a track of what reasons people have for being gone — if they were sick, what their symptoms were, that sort of thing.”
Burbank said he set up his classes to stay a step ahead of an H1N1 outbreak at UNM. He is putting all of his assignments on WebCT for students who have to stay home, and he’s communicating with them by e-mail.
UNM Emergency Manager Byron Piatt said emergency operation centers at UNM have been working to keep the community in the loop as the pandemic progresses.
“The message we’ve been trying to get out is social mitigation: Wash your hands, if you’re sick then don’t come to work, and teachers need to be lenient on the policy of getting doctor’s notes,” Piatt said. “We don’t want sick people going out in public.”
Piatt said it’s also important to get the seasonal flu vaccine, even though it won’t prevent H1N1. He said the shot is already available at the UNM Student Health and Counseling Center.
“We’ve been trying to tell people to get vaccinated,” Piatt said. “We’ve been coordinating within the University to give people many opportunities to get the seasonal vaccine and then we’ll turn around and try to get the H1N1 vaccine as soon as possible.”
The H1N1 vaccine will be available after manufacturing and clinical trials are finished, according to the Centers for Disease Control Web site.
Lori McKee, director of health and wellness at NMSU, said the two universities are preparing for the flu in similar ways.
McKee said the government approved the H1N1 vaccine for production on Sept. 15, and vaccines should be available at the end of October.
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“We’re making plans to do immunization clinics on campus once that is available,” she said.
Piatt said college students are a high risk group for the flu, so they will be one of the first to get the vaccine.
“The vaccine will be given to health care workers and first responders, then pregnant women, then infants six months in age to adults 24 years old,” Piatt said.
