With the Ebola epidemic, UF is preparing for potential virus outbreaks on campus.
“Certainly, Ebola is on everyone’s mind,” said UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes.
Sikes said students need to remember the flu and other viruses are more likely to spread during this time of year, which is why everyone should be mindful of face-touching habits.
“We are working on general communications that will go out campuswide about viruses in general,” she said.
If there were an Ebola case in the UF community, UF would work with the Florida Department of Health to identify people who had contact with that individual. Then the department would determine if anyone needed to be monitored, isolated or potentially quarantined, and UF would assist in that process, Sikes said.
“The recent meningitis case is a good example of how UF and the health department worked together to conduct contact tracing,” Sikes wrote in an email.
Fedro Zazueta, associate corporate information officer in UF’s Office of Academic Technology and a professor in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, said this is not the first time UF has developed ways to deal with virus outbreaks. He said during the H1N1 virus (swine flu) scare back in 2009, the university had a general strategy to reduce contact among people.
UF has now developed a system for students to continue their classes if the campus must be quarantined, Zazueta said. Faculty members have created their in-class courses to be readily available online in a course management system if campus were to shut down.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 10/22/2014]
