University of Iowa offers flu kits to curb spread of H1N1

Perhaps it's the next best thing to Mom.

“Isolation Meal Packs,” which include hot soup, a sandwich, juice and milk, have been delivered to the dorm rooms of about 100 sick University of Iowa students in recent weeks.

Two or three of the meals are delivered daily to students sick with the flu, UI interim spokesman Tom Moore said Monday.

Students call or e-mail their requests for the meal deliveries, Moore said. UI officials have asked students to stay in their rooms until they are fever-free for 24 hours, in an attempt to curb the spread of the H1N1 virus.

The UI also offers free flu kits for students, with ibuprofen, hand sanitizer, tissues and a digital thermometer.

“It's so they don't feel like they have to go out and get certain things,” Moore said of the meals and flu kits.

Other colleges and universities in Eastern Iowa are offering similar kits and special deliveries.

College campuses are expected to be hard hit by the flu this fall because of shared student living quarters, bathrooms and dining halls.

However, Moore said Monday the in-person visits and telephone inquiries to UI Student Health regarding H1N1, commonly called swine flu, have dropped noticeably.

In the two weeks after Labor Day, UI officials thought about 200 students were being affected by H1N1, based on reported symptoms. But after a week or two, it dropped by about half, Moore said.

“That's out of the norm for what's happening across the country, and we don't know why,” he said.