Student Health Services faces unpredictable flu season

As the weather gets colder, students may have to worry about one more thing — the flu.

While Student Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can act quickly to administer flu vaccines, it is difficult for them to predict what the actual flu season will bring.

SHS administered two flu clinics this year, on Oct. 10 and Oct. 17, where they administered 2,751 total vaccines. This was an 8 percent increase from the previous year, according to SHS. SHS will not be hosting any more clinics, but will administer vaccines through individual appointments.

SHS estimates it will administer about 5,500 vaccines through clinics and individual appointments to the Penn community by the end of this flu season. About 24 percent of the student population and 75 percent of faculty and staff have received flu shots.

“Getting a flu vaccine literally takes four minutes from the time they enter the front door, get vaccinated and leave the back door,” said Sharon McMullen, director of Student Health Service’s Campus Health Initiatives.

The flu vaccine that SHS administers is not a live vaccine so it only stimulates an immune response, which helps the body to build antibodies.

The vaccine causes the body to recognize those influenza strains, and when the body is exposed to the virus after the shot, it can recognize it and fight it off.

The first flu report from the CDC released on Oct. 12 shows that this year’s strain influenza A (H3N2) is low nationwide. The first reported case of H3N2 was reported from Ohio on April 12.

Influenza type A usually hits in January, and Influenza type B usually hits in February and March.

The previous flu season of 2011-2012 was atypical as the whole country witnessed almost no influenza-like illness, McMullen said. There was no type A, and type B came late in April.

The 2010-2011 flu season was more typical. Influenza type A, which usually hits in January, hit on time and Influenza type B, which usually hits in February and March, was not present.

But the pandemic of H1N1 during flu season of 2009-2010 makes other years look insignificant in comparison.

“We vaccinated more people than ever before” in that flu season, McMullen said. SHS reported 1,100 cases of H1N1.

“We experienced the same tsunami wave of influenza in the fall of 2009 as the nation did,” she said. “You don’t get the flu in the fall and you don’t get flu of those numbers.”

The virus that caused the pandemic wasn’t included in that season’s flu vaccine so when the H1N1 pandemic hit, a new vaccine had to be developed, produced and administered.

Because the vaccine for the H1N1 strain was administered by the government, SHS had to wait before they could begin vaccinating students.

Reported influenza-like illnesses receded as more vaccines were administered, McMullen said.

With SHS’s close relationship with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, they specifically allocated vaccines to Penn faster than most places. This enabled SHS to vaccinate the Penn community faster.

Only time will tell what this year’s season will bring.

“Obviously we are really interested to see what this year brings us,” McMullen said.

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