The Ball State Health Center is following the statewide trend of seeing an increasing number of patients coming through their doors suffering from the flu recently.
Kent Bullis, Health Center medical director, said the number of influenza cases seen at the center began to increase shortly after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
"There's no question that we have seen increased cases of influenza," he said. "It's very difficult to predict, but my overall impression is that the numbers will stay fairly flat. It seems like after spring break when everybody spreads out then people come back it calms down, but you just never know."
Bullis said the Health Center has flu vaccines available for students, but it needs to be given 4-8 weeks before a recipient contracts the virus so he isn't pushing students to receive it at the moment.
Bullis said a college campus is an environment where the virus can thrive, but the Health Center encourages professors to be reasonable with their attendance policies this time of year because of the number of students who may be ill.
"College students are always interacting with large numbers of people so that tends to increase the spread a bit," he said. "Another thing is that people are often contagious for 24 hours before they even know they're sick so they will infect people before they know to stay home."
Ann Clamme-Monroe, nursing supervisor at the Delaware County Health Department, said they still have the vaccine as well. It is available from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and from 1 to 3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays at the county building in downtown Muncie at 100 W. Main St.
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