University Health Services Director Dr. Sarah Van Orman provided a campus H1N1 virus fall semester recap and update at a Board of Regents meeting held January 8.
Although Van Orman said she does not like to make predictions about the flu, she said another H1N1 outbreak could occur early on in the semester.
""It is possible that there could be a third peak of activity at the beginning of the spring semester when we once again have those large numbers of students arriving on our campus,"" she said.
Van Orman also said that although there were two peaks during the semester when large numbers of students were seeking medical help for the virus, she said she feels the UW System campuses handled the outbreak well, emphasizing the need for open communication in the future.
""People on campus want to know what is going on and they want to know what the campus is doing about it, so providing clear, comprehensive communications is very, very important,"" she said.
According to Van Orman, the H1N1 vaccine poses the biggest challenge going into the spring semester.
She said the vaccine first arrived in small amounts, and UHS was able to vaccinate only about 6,000 students during the fall semester, when she would prefer that number were closer to 20,000.
Van Orman said the good news about the H1N1 virus is that the severity has remained fairly low and she still emphasizes the importance of good hygiene and self-isolation to stop the virus from spreading.
At the meeting, the Regents also discussed and approved three capital initiatives for UW-Milwaukee in an effort to expand research activity across the UW System.
The investments will go toward improving or replacing three existing research initiatives including the redevelopment of Columbia St. Mary's Hospital.
Regent David Walsh said both UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin and former UW-Madison Chancellor John Riley support the UW-Milwaukee research funding.
""There's clearly room [for more competition],"" he said in a statement. ""The key is it's good for Wisconsin, and it's especially good for southeast Wisconsin to generate whatever research we can in that part of the state.""
According to the statement, out of the initial $240 million in funding for UW-Milwaukee's initiative, $64 million is still available for future research projects.
