The cases of people at Georgetown reported with Influenza Like Illness (ILI) dropped to about 30 a week in the past two weeks, according to James Welsh, the Assistant VP for Student Health.
450 cases have been reported since the start of the term.
Although the Georgetown community has not yet been vaccinated, about 300 students have received an intranasal form of the vaccine. Welsh said that the vaccinated students are often in close proximity with H1N1 patients, including medical students, nursing students, and Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Service Technicians.
“We anticipate receiving the injectable vaccine in the coming weeks and will follow the guidance of the Department of Health in providing that to our community”, Welsh wrote in an email.
The intranasal form of the vaccine has a live but weakened form of the H1N1 virus. whereas the injected form of the vaccine has an inactivated form of the virus. Both give “relative (not 100 percent) immunity,” said Dr. Eric Glasser, Assistant Chief of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University Hospital and head of the H1N1 task force there.
The GU hospital has not yet received H1N1 vaccines but Glasser says that the hospital’s out patient clinics receive many calls about it. Nonetheless, Glasser says the hospital has seen relatively few cases to be truly concerned about.
“The cases seen in the [Emergency Department] at GUH have been mostly mild cases,” Glasser wrote in an email. “Very few need anything more than over the counter medicines and lots of fluids.”
Sophie Clark (COL ‘12), a new GERMS member, said that most H1N1 cases she has seen so far have been mild.
GERMS EMTS are advised to not transport H1N1 patients to the hospital because H1N1 is highly contagious and being at a hospital will not help, accordig to Clark. Instead, GERMS tells H1N1 patients to stay home, rest as much as possible, and drink fluids.
So far, the US government has obtained 250 million doses of H1N1 vaccine. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, though there is an overall availability of the vaccine, the vaccine is initially expected to be available in limited qualities, and will be shipped as it produced to “project areas” which are places designated for H1N1 vaccine delivery and include all 50 states and D.C.
