My uni has just begun to go crazy on swine flu - they are predicting EVERYONE will come down with it and it ruin all the courses AND the world over the next 6 months (well nearly).

Any other unis going into swine flu overdrive?

I really don't know what is happening at other unis. Mine is cool. Everything runs as usual, except from the posters that are all around.
By the way, I had it and it was nothing that important!!! The most annoying thing was that I had to stay inside my house for 7 days....GRRRRRRR

My uni is pretty cool about it too. Emails have been sent out to students advising them what to do if they have signs of the infection, but otherwise it's business as usual.

I was diagnosed with swine flu too, at the end of July. I'm very high-risk for complications from any flu because I'm permanently immunosuppressed due to chemo and steroids. My main flu symptoms lasted a week. I was knocked out for a month in total, and coughing for 8 weeks. But the knockout was probably due to the underlying disease. Had I been healthy I think I would have shrugged it off in a jiffy. It didn't seem as bad as previous flus I've had. I'm just very sick!

Our uni was like this up until this week. I think the undergrads coming back has suddenly shaken them into worrying about it. They are suggesting that a large amount of students will be off ill, I assume as all those people come from all over the country and meet in one place - so freshers flu + swine flu = :-(

I guess its an excuse to work from home :p

My uni is fairly relaxed about it.


Like Emmaki and BilboBaggins, I've also had swine flu. I was off work for 2 weeks and although it did floor me, it wasn't as bad as the media are making it out to be. A friend from school is stuck in a medically induced coma in Ibiza after contracting it so I suppose it will affect different people in different ways.

My uni has installed antibacterial hand gel dispensers everywhere (not too sure if others have done the same). Still, didn't stop me from catching it off some pesky little kids at the swimming pool though did it? The pool was full of primary school children having swimming lessons - I must have caught it off one of them, coz the next day it hit me quite bad. I'm just coming to the end of it now - what a relief!
I wish I was one of the lucky ones who sailed through it. It felt like the worst flu I have ever had (well, since I was a kid anyway). But then again, I'm a bit of a wimp when I get ill. I'm just grateful I didn't get it as bad as the person in ibiza!
Glad it's coming to the end now coz it's bloomin' boring just sitting in bed all day getting bed sores!
When I fully recover I think I'm gonna do something mad like a bungee jump - yeah..erm...to the library. Crazy.

My boss is off with swine flu at the minute; I saw her Friday, but have been ok since. There are posters all over the show at my uni, but no-one is jumping up and down about it. I've evn heard some people say they suspect my boss of faking it, that they think she had swine flu earlier in the year too, so it's been talked about as a serious issue.

Why on earth are universities putting out antibacterial handwash/cream to combat swine 'flu - has no-one informed them it's a virus?

From what I've heard as long as hand sanitizers have alcohol in their composition they can kill the virus.

hand sanitisers will not kill flu, like hypothesis said, its a virus! can protect against secondary bacterial infection though, but its really just a form action so gov don't look like they not doing anything - as usual media boom!

We just have to hope pesky students don't start drinkin it like those dorset inmates - cheap jello shots when dosh running low?! ;-)

our uni not too bad, sent a few emails round to warn people to stay off if ill, had few people getting it but nobody has started running around screaming yet!

Well! My boss who was off with Swine flu on Monday and Tuesday is back at work today, and doing the rounds of admin offices, students and academics. So, either half of our place will be off with it soon, or the swine flu was an excuse for a sickie after all.

If it was swine flu that's pretty irresponsible. Healthy people can be contagious for up to a week after symptoms start.

I do have rather strong views about this, being a very unhealthy person (due to illness/chemo treatment) who is more prone to infections!

Bilbo, you are soooo right! My boss was in on Friday saying her husband and kid had it, so if this is true, she should not have been anywhere near the uni then anyway. Also, it seems a bit soon to be physically able to get back to work, so I'm starting to suspect wolf crying, either scenario is not good though, and another **** up at my department so far this term. I am flabbergasted that someone with swine flu could be willfuly spreading it about the uni. But! I'm going too stop thinking about it now, and get some more work done on the PhD, because the shenanigans at my department have taken enough of my time and energy already. 

I agree with Bilbobaggins, if it was swine flu then for me that does some show little responsibility. I understand that washing your hands is one of the best things we can do and off course not to sneeze and cough all over the place to protect others. I heard a doctor on a radio station saying to sneeze into your elbow if you don't have a tissue, helps if you can't get to wash your hands right away. I read a piece in a health promotion journal where the commenter, Dr Stanwell-Smith a senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said in relation to the media hype, that it "....was understandable, particularly with the high attack rake in the young. What should also interest health commentators is the evidence of a profound believe in public health interventions, such as vaccines - associated with a much less interest in modifying behaviour, such as not sneezing into someone's face, washing hands more often and considering the necessity for quite so many school trips and visits to crowded places. The triumph of public health measures, in reducing the risk of many serious infections, now seems a two edged sword, since many find it hard to understand why an infection cannot be easily stopped - without any effort by the public at large" . Anyway, sorry to go off topic, my university has posted a notice about what measures will be put in place should the pandemic worsen, I am not against organisations who are seen to be doing something and taking this thing seriously even if it just in the form of information.

So far I have heard nothing from our uni, but it will come.... we're registering this week so I imagine it will all come online at the end of the week when all new freshers have their accounts.

I also agree that behaviour surrounding swine flu (or any flu) is just ridiculous and totally irresponsible. I have suppressed immunity and it worries me a lot (but you've cheered me up Bilbobaggins by surviving it!) but I do find the way people cough and sneeze all over you, and worse still come back in before they are no longer infectious to be incredibly irresponsible. A friend of mine has a lung disorder, it is such that she will either need a lung transplant or be dead by 40 - she caught it a couple of weeks back after her co-worker came in coughing and sneezing and still running a temperature but proclaiming how she wasn't one to be kept off with a bit of flu! Needless to say my friend is terribly ill, she has two young children (she had them prior to her condition becoming apparent - she is not irresponsible) and I'm so frightened for her. Had her stupid co-worker stayed indoors then maybe this wouldn't have happened - she was in line for the first batch of vaccine when it came to her area and may have been ok..... I do think the work ethic that suggests that staying home when sick is skyving is partially to blame - people are scared of losing their jobs and don't want to appear to be throwing sickies, but in this case it should be stressed that if you go out you make others ill and they may not be so strong. I certainly wouldn't want anyone who had it near me, or whose family had it. When we went to graduation this year I was sat next to a friend who happily announced her husband had gone down with it - argghhhh!!!!

Sorry to go OT but it does worry me, you can't wrap yourself in cotton wool, but people should have the sense to stay home when sick and not spread the virus about. I do find the quote interesting though - it does seem as though people do expect that a virus can be stopped easily now that we have vaccines for everything and therefore totally ignore any sense of responsibility for their actions.