University Health Services released statistics Tuesday revealing a decrease in students at UW-Madison reporting flu-like symptoms.
UHS said 168 students contacted them with flu-like symptoms during the week of Sept. 13-19, making up 12.6 percent of the total visits to the UHS primary-care clinic.
During the week of Sept. 6-12, UHS evaluated 345 people with flu-like symptoms, and those cases represented 28 percent of the total visits to UHS.
Craig Roberts, a UHS epidemiologist, said although these numbers are down, the number of reported flu-like illnesses is still extremely high for this time of year.
""What we continue to see this week is still a lot of students with influenza in general,"" he said. ""The rates of influenza-like illnesses in our clinic are very high, like what we would usually see in the peak of the [flu] season in a normal year.""
According to Roberts, it may be too early to tell if the numbers are decreasing for good.
He added the decrease could be caused by a more widespread awareness of the illness, leading to students taking extra precautions to protect themselves.
""It could be that the real incidence of influenza declined on campus, but it is certainly very plausible that the message has got out there widely and that people feel less of a need to contact us or come in for care,"" he said.
Roberts added that students coming to UHS with H1N1 are still reporting the same symptoms: fever, body aches, cough, sore throat and runny nose.
Students with these symptoms can contact UHS at 265-5600.
