University Health Center
After the nation saw one of its worst flu seasons in years, some researchers are hoping patients and doctors will come around to one of the most effective — and snubbed — methods of preventing its spread: wearing a mask.
This season, about 300 students on the campus alone cashed in after getting sick by participating in a paid flu research study, and the virus continued to spread through late February. While doctors often urge people to wash their hands and cover their mouths when they cough, people should likely act further, according to a recent study by the university’s public health school, which found the virus may be much more concentrated in its airborne form than previously believed.
Though the virus has plagued populations for decades, scientists are still not completely certain if the flu spreads primarily through direct or indirect contact with a sick person, through droplets sprayed by coughing and sneezing or merely through breathing the same air as someone with the flu, said professor Don Milton, who led the study recently published in the PLOS Pathogens journal.
However, Milton’s team’s report — authored at this university based on research his team conducted at the University of Massachusetts in 2009 — reveals there is nine times as much influenza virus present in tiny droplets suspended in the air than in large droplets that end up on surfaces, said Milton, director of the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health.
“The flu kills lots of people worldwide, with tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths occurring everywhere yearly,” Milton said. “With the results of this research, there may be things we can do to effectively prevent so many deaths. We can really work out practical methods to prevent the flu now that we know what may cause its transmission.”
The next step of this research is to decipher how it can help rein in flu outbreaks on the campus, said Dushanka Kleinman, public health school research and academic affairs associate dean. The university, along with Health Center officials, is planning to look at the implications of this study and see how it can help improve student health.
The study may indicate doctors should urge sick people to wear flu masks, Milton said. He and his research team came to that conclusion after having flu patients sit in a machine that collects exhaled breath for one hour; For the first 30 minutes, the subjects wore surgical masks and for the remaining 30 minutes, they went without. This research method is the first that has displayed there was more than a three-fold reduction in the amount of exhaled particles containing the flu virus by putting a surgical mask on a patient, Milton said.
“This research will most likely increase the use of surgical masks,” he said. “The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] already recommends and reinforces that message, but this is really the first time that it has been proven that surgical masks can prevent flu transmission.”
Milton said he anticipates the study could influence how the national health care realm treats flu patients. The research could result in officials requesting all people diagnosed with the flu wear surgical masks when interacting with others to decrease infections, he said, which could also be implemented on the campus.
Because students are constantly interacting with each other, even when sick, it’s easy to contract airborne illnesses, said Natalia Aguirre, a freshman enrolled in letters and sciences. While a hassle, masks could prevent a campuswide epidemic, she said.
“When you are so close to other students in the classroom, the dorms or the dining halls, you may not be touching others, but you are still in the proximity of another person’s ‘bubble,’ ” she said. “If students are going to these types of places where they are surrounded by others and may infect them, then yes, they should wear surgical masks.”
Supporting this type of research opportunity for professors and students supplies them with the latest scientific developments but also gives them hands-on experience with conducting studies, said Pat O’Shea, university research vice president and chief officer.
“A researcher is kind of like an explorer — they are always helping to find new ways to do things,” O’Shea said. “As a university, we need to make sure that we are educating explorers and not just teaching tourists.”
