# 3628
A little over a year ago I had the opportunity to speak to hundreds of College Health Professionals at the 2008 ACHA (American College Health Association) annual meeting in Orlando.
I, along with Dr. Susan Chu, held down the Readymoms booth in the exhibition hall. We provided information to hundreds of visitors on ways students and their families could prepare for a pandemic.
The Readymoms are a volunteer, grassroots, organization that began a little more than two years ago to spread the pandemic preparedness message.
One of the Readymoms Displays.
Over the past two years they have attended many high profile events, such as the APHA (American Public Health Association) Convention in Washington D.C and the Second National Emergency Management Summit, also held in the nation's capital.
At the ACHA meeting one of the things we were promoting was that all students needed a pandemic plan which would include emergency travel plans back home, and a `flu kit’ to give them a week or two worth of food/supplies in case they found themselves quarantined in their dorm.
Most of the college health care professionals we spoke to seemed very receptive to the ideas. Today, we get word that the University of Illinois has recommended similar precautions for their students returning this fall.
UI asks students with flu to quarantine themselves for a week
By Debra Pressey
Friday, August 14, 2009 8:30 AM CDT
URBANA – University of Illinois students should be prepared to return home for a week if they become infected with the novel flu strain H1N1, also known as swine flu.
Students are also being advised to bring along enough food and medical supplies to sustain them for a week, in the event that they're cooped up in their rooms for that long, sick with flu.
A mass mailing outlining plans to handle an H1N1 outbreak on campus went out Thursday from UI McKinley Health Center Director Dr. Robert Palinkas to about 40,000 students, plus another 20,000 faculty and other employees.
In his letter, Palinkas said most people with swine flu will do fairly well after a week of at-home care.
"For this reason, ill students should plan to either go home to their family for about a week or spend a week in relative isolation in a room to avoid infecting others," he wrote.
Students would be well-advised, he wrote, to bring their own thermometers, liquids to drink, fever medication, easily prepared foods, hand sanitizer and facial tissues.
Palinkas said McKinley Health Center is preparing for the eventuality of swine flu among students who have been exposed to it at summer educational programs and camps, and those returning from countries in the Southern Hemisphere where the virus has spread.
For more information on the Readymoms visit their site (and download the copious amount of free materials there), or go back and read some of the blogs I’ve written about them in the past.
