Flu pandemic prep: with the possibility of a deadly flu pandemic—today's worry being avian flu—good planning may be the best medicine. Is your school prepared?

University Business, Feb, 2007 by Ron Schachter

THE PROSPECT OF AN AVIAN FLU EPIdemic in the near future makes most disaster films pale in comparison. As a newly mutated form of the H5N1 virus spreads rapidly from human to human, public transportation comes to a sudden stop, public events are canceled, and public schools--and many workplaces--shut down.

Within weeks, the ill overwhelm any medical facilities within reach, while others become prisoners in their homes and watch the 24-hour TV coverage, as officials plead for calm and health experts warn of the high mortality rate and the millions who could die worldwide in a matter of months. Those predictions begin to come true, as emptied schools and commercial buildings turn into makeshift morgues.

Now, the avian flu has not yet mutated into a form that spreads easily among humans. No pandemic is imminent, and the nightly news has been covering the concern but not consistently. Yet a growing number of colleges and universities are taking the threat of a "bird flu" pandemic seriously, writing their own scripts about what it could mean to them, and getting ready in ways they have never before had to consider.

Whether the bird flu strikes or not, college and university officials say that the preparations they are making will serve them well. "I think our plan would be very adaptable if there were similar kinds of crises," says Jim Osteen, assistant vice president for Student Affairs at the University of Maryland, which completed its own plan last June.

Getting a Head Start

Some schools, including the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, have emerged as leaders in anticipating the avian flu in human form. "Pandemic influenza has been on our radar screen for a long time," says Jill DeBoer, the director of the Office of Emergency Response at the university's Academic Health Center.

Besides building a detailed plan around 10 main areas of concern from vaccine distribution to student housing and health care, to contact with public health departments (see page 43)--DeBoer and her colleagues on a special planning committee have run simulations of a flu outbreak on campus and built a comprehensive website. They regularly share ideas with other Big Ten institutions, too.

At other institutions, facing the possibilities of a flu pandemic has taken longer. "At first, I thought planning for the avian flu was farfetched," admits Maryland's Osteen. "I was not enthusiastic about coming to the table. But over the course of preparing, I've changed my mind. If the flu becomes as bad as it was in 1918, we want to be ready."

The "Spanish Flu" of 1918 is estimated to have killed more than 50 million people worldwide and was particularly virulent in young adults. Incidentally, the 1918 outbreak had its origins in an avian strain. The historical facts caught the attention of John Sheffield, the director of Safety and Risk Management at the University of Richmond (Va.). "I began to research the 1918 flu, and the more I learned, the more I became concerned," he says. His university formed its planning committee in January 2006.

When it comes to assembling planning committees, these officials agree, the more representatives from the school community, the better. "A pandemic would impact every aspect of a college or university," Sheffield explains. At Richmond, everyone from the director of campus police and the vice president of facilities to the VPs of information technology and business has joined the planning process.

"We thought we could get a few people to write a plan," says Osteen, who adds that the committee at Maryland quickly grew to more than two dozen members. "Having them all at the table--while less efficient--helped us get a better product," he insists.

Lessons from the Past

As schools try to find the answers to the questions of what precautions to take, when to cancel classes and close down, how to treat the sick and house the well, and how to stay in business during an extended epidemic, past medical crises offer only limited guidance.

During the SARS outbreak several years ago in Asia and in Canada, Maryland's Osteen recalls, people entering the school's health center were asked to put on protective masks if they had traveled to those locations. And Sheffield recalls a meningitis scare earlier this decade during which people avoided public events on the University of Richmond campus and some parents even summoned their children home. "The big lesson that we learned is that we would have a big fear factor to deal with," he says.

While the University of Minnesota beefed up its emergency planning in the aftermath of 9/11, past practices have been able to only go so far, says DeBoer. "It's really important for us to raise the unique issues, which include an event of long duration that may happen everywhere at once and for which we can't count on neighbors helping," she cautions.

The Trigger Point

One of the most vexing issues to administrators is choosing a trigger point to put any emergency plan into action. Many--including the University of Maryland--may take action when the World Health Organization confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus among localized clusters of people anywhere in the world. "We would want to err on the side of beating the panic rather than getting caught in the middle," says Osteen, who would begin issuing alerts to the university community.