Flu shots to be given at health center
By Aarpm Kokoruz
Staff Reporter

She ached all over and couldn’t move, let alone make it to class. Meredith Alonso, a sophomore speech communication major, had come down with the flu.

“It knocked me on my behind for quite a while,” Alonso said of her bout with the flu last year. “I didn’t get a flu shot last year, but I’ll definitely be getting a shot this year.”

With cases of influenza already in parts of Texas this year, getting a flu shot will be important, said Burton W. Schwartz, a physician at the TCU Health Center.

Influenza attacks the respiratory tract of the nose, throat and lungs and is spread through coughing, sneezing or even talking, according to the Texas Department of Health.

“The flu usually hits TCU hardest around Christmas, and we’re really busy in the Health Center after the Christmas break as students bring the flu to campus from different areas they’ve traveled to,” Schwartz said.

Since the flu is a virus, there is no cure for it, Schwartz said.

“If antibiotics are used, they are used for bacterial complications that have arisen from the flu, not the flu itself,” he said.

Common symptoms of the flu include generalized body aches and pains, a fever, headaches and fatigue, according to the Baylor College of Medicine.
A lot of the illness, and even death, caused by the flu can be easily prevented by a yearly flu shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.

Schwartz said getting flu shots early in the flu season is important because it takes several weeks after the shot to gain immunity.

About 5 percent of people who get the flu vaccine experience mild aches and pains and a low-grade fever, but they don’t have the flu, which has much more severe symptoms, according to the Baylor College of Medicine.

The Health Center has no exact date set yet on when flu shots will be available at the Health Center, but it will be soon, Schwartz said.

Flu shots will be available for $17, which is a good price compared with other places, Schwartz said.

The exact dates the Health Center will be offering flu shots will soon be posted on the TCU Health Center Web site, TCU Announce and the Campus Lines section of The Skiff.

Students who want a flu shot, but don’t want to go to the Health Center, could do an Internet search on flu shots in Fort Worth, Schwartz said.