In the wake of last year’s flu epidemic and this year’s avian flu scare, health care officials set the record straight about the flu and what to do.

Director of Student Health Shannon Deal and CEO Administrator of Volunteer Community Hospital Steve Westenhofer both agree that there is not a flu epidemic at this time.

“Usually the flu season runs from October to March,” said Deal. “But last year the flu season didn’t start until February or March. It hit late last year. This year we expect a milder flu season than last year.”

Last year flu vaccines were limited. UTM Student Health Center will have a limited supply again this year as well because UTM is not considered to have a high risk population, which are the very young or elderly.

“People who are high risk get it first,” Deal said.

However, Westenhofer does not foresee a flu vaccine shortage at Volunteer Community Hospital in Martin.

“We get our order in early along with all of the hospitals in the area. We have enough stock to take care of our volunteers, employees, staff and the community,” Westenhofer said.

“Last year the Center for Disease Control controlled the disbursement of the vaccines that we had. We could only give it to the young or elderly. There was no shortage of vaccines last year at Volunteer Community Hospital. We had the doses, but could not give it out. By the end of the flu season, we had several hundred doses left. We ended up with an access because the CDC said that we could only give it to high risk patients,” Westenhofer said.

This year, Volunteer Community Hospital will host a Health Fair on November 3 in the hospital’s Wellness Center. Flu vaccines will be available for $20 and is open to the public. They will also be giving free screenings, and other health organizations will be participating as well. It will begin in the morning and last until 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. As for avian flu, there has not been a case reported in the United States at this time.

There have been world-wide isolated outbreaks of a deadly strain of bird flu, H5N1, and recent reports report bird-to-human transmission in Canada.

“There is no vaccine to prevent you from getting it,” Westenhofer said regarding the avian flu. “As for the regular flu, there could be multiple strains. The vaccine is just for one strain.”

The hype of the avian flu from the media is “not warranted,” Deal said. And Westenhofer agreed that the amount of media coverage of the avian flu is “disproportionate,” but that it is “a good idea for people to be concerned with health issues and health practices to stop the spread of disease.”

“The avian flu is not transmissible from person to person. It has not mutated yet. At present, it is only transmissible from bird to person,” Deal said.

However, with any flu type there are precautions that you can take. Frequent hand washing, avoiding large crowds, avoiding people who are sick and getting a flu shot can prevent you from contracting the flu, Deal said.

“If you are in close contact with someone with the flu, there is something you can take to prevent it,” Deal said. ”The same medication that is used to treat the flu can prevent it.” Deal recommends that care givers of flu victims contact their family physician about preventative medication.

For optimum effectiveness, the flu shot should be taken by November 1 and no later than February. However, you can take it as early as October and as late as March for it to still be effective, Deal said.

The UTM Student Health Center will work with Health and Human performance if they decide to host a health fair on campus.

However, the Student Health Center will be giving flu shots at various locations on campus. The locations will be published at a later date. “Hypothetically, in the event of an avian flu epidemic on campus, we would go by what the Health Department tells us,” Deal said. “We have an Emergency Readiness Plan; a campus wide emergency plan. And there is a committee that meets three or four times a year to go through disaster scenarios.“

The Health Department would make the final decision about a quarantine. Every department knows what would be needed. For example, the Department of Housing knows how many blankets and mattresses they would need and Food Service knows the amount of food that would be needed to support a quarantine,” Deal said.

“The campus would be closed if it was in the best interest of the students, but if it could be handled with the campus open, we would keep it open. Closing the campus would only be a last resort.”

Westenhofer said that a quarantine would be controlled by the government through the health centers. “We (Volunteer Community Hospital) would be considered a health provider. We would participate and report strains. Mass management comes from the government and we would be obligated to comply,” Westenhofer said.

“Hypothetically, in the event of an extreme outbreak, calling in the military would be a government call. The government may not have the man power to restrict travel. But in a true quarantine, the travel of people must be restricted,” Westenhofer said.

“”In the hospital, we can control our own environment. We have negative pressure rooms that we use if a patient comes in with tuberculosis. We also have portable units that we can use to convert other rooms into negative pressure rooms as well. Hypothetically, if one or two people contracted the avian flu, they could be isolated,” Westenhofer said.

For more information regarding flu vaccines, contact Shannon Deal of UTM Student Health Services at (731) 881-7750.