College freshmen are advised to avoid meeting new friends in their campuses to help prevent the spread of swine flu as the A(N1N1) cases have soared to 54 on Tuesday. The mutant virus has so far caused no fatalities. Freshmen orientation and assemblies have been cancelled in many universities as part of the measures to prevent the spread of swine flu in the campuses. The University of the Philippines (UP)-Diliman canceled its traditional welcome assembly on Tuesday. UP officials have also ordered the distribution of posters with health guidelines. The University of the East (UE) will use digital thermometers to take the temperatures of everyone entering its Manila and Caloocan campuses. The University of Santo Tomas (UST) has assigned a medical team to each school building to respond to any signs of illness. The university, which has both medical and nursing schools, will also distribute cardboard fans with health guidelines to students, faculty, and university staff. In addition to suspending its freshman orientation, the Ateneo de Manila University requires all students to reveal recent travel information online and those coming from abroad to observe a 10-day self-quarantine as recommended by the Department of Health. Eight college students in Metro Manila are known to have been infected on campuses that already had ongoing classes. Health officials say it is possible they could have been infected just by being in the same classroom as the virus carriers. Foreign students who recently arrived from abroad are asked by some schools to enroll online if they have not completed their 10-day quarantine, de Guzman added. The Department on Health on Tuesday confirmed eight more new cases of influenza A (H1N1), bringing the total number of the country's cases to 54. “We are expecting the number to increase because of the aggressive contact tracing that the Department of Health (DOH) is doing right now and our hospitals have been ready for this situation,” said Health Secretary Francisco Dugue. “These new cases are also like the previous ones that are mild in nature, very similar to the cases seen in other affected counties.” The eight new confirmed cases include seven Filipinos and one foreigner. Four are males and four are females with an age range of 16-44 years old. Six of the cases are students of the De La Salle University, while one is the first confirmed case from the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde. Two of the eight new confirmed cases have just come from the United States. Since May 1, the DOH has monitored 599 cases under observation. Of these, 54 were positive A (H1N1) cases, 148 have pending laboratory results, and 397 were negative for A(H1N1) and have been discarded. There are 58 new cases under observation, as of Tuesday, health authorities said. Worldwide, the WHO reported 25,288 cases and 139 deaths from 73 countries. Cayman's Islands, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago and United Arab Emirates are the newest countries with confirmed A (H1N1) cases. Admitting that it's hard to stop the rise in swine flu cases, Duque said the DOH has decided to look for more ways to contain the novel disease.
