The total number of reported swine flu cases on the University of Wisconsin campus showed a slight decrease this week following several weeks of fluctuating numbers, as University Health Services continues to wait for a second shipment of vaccines for the third week in a row.
From Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, the number of cases reported to UHS of influenza-like illness stood at 72, a slight drop from the previous week’s recording of 74 cases. The influenza-like illness rate on campus also decreased from 6.5 percent during the week of Oct. 17 through 24 to 5.2 percent during this past week.
UHS has not received any additional H1N1 vaccines since their initial shipment of 2,500 on Oct. 14, though more supplies have been requested.
“We are being told to expect more vaccinations to become available two weeks from now, but the situations have been changing very quickly,” said UHS Executive Director Sarah Van Orman.
According to UHS, they have administered 7,900 doses of the seasonal vaccine in the last nine weeks and 1,200 doses of the H1N1-specific vaccine in the last two and a half weeks. The remaining 1,300 doses continue to be administered in accordance with state guidelines.
She added if vaccines remain after the primary target group is vaccinated, the remainder will be allocated according to the guidelines.
The primary group the vaccinations are being provided to range from health care workers and pregnant women to children under four and children ages four to 18 with underlying medical conditions.
Craig Roberts, epidemiologist for UHS, said the risk of the virus spreading increases with the delay in providing the vaccination to the entire student body.
“Ideally it would have been nice to have had everybody immunized at the beginning of the semester,” Roberts said.
He said there has been an upward trend of cases over the past two weeks.
“We haven’t been able to vaccinate as many people as we wanted,” Roberts said.
Van Orman stated the H1N1 campus rate is similar to what is being seen all across Wisconsin, and even though the beginning of the semester showed the campus’ rate as higher than the state’s, they have grown more reflective of each other.
