University health officials are expressing cautious relief that an outbreak of pink eye at some other colleges appears not to have spread to Duke over spring break.
Hundreds of students at Dartmouth College and Princeton University have contracted the disease over the past month. Pink eye--more formally known as conjunctivitis--is considered relatively harmless and treatable, but some officials had worried the contagious illness would spread to students from other schools during spring break.
"We were seeing more conjunctivitis... before break than we normally do, but we got wind of this on a Thursday and undergrads were taking off in all directions," said Dr. William Christmas, director of student health at Duke.
"We were prepared if we saw a lot of conjunctivitis to culture it to see if it's a certain strain, but we haven't seen a large number," he said.
Either a bacterium or a virus can cause the illness, which is characterized by irritation of the conjunctiva--the eyes' lining--and a discharge from the eyes.
Health officials at Dartmouth, which began its spring break last Wednesday, have identified about 600 cases since late January, with a surge in cases in late February and early March. The school has 4,200 undergraduates enrolled. Princeton, which has 4,550 undergraduates, reported 160 cases.
With the help of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dartmouth identified the infections as caused by a rare strain of bacteria.
The source of the outbreak remains unknown, but the infections were successfully treated with antibiotics. They were still seeing cases as break began and are still taking extra precautions, said Dartmouth health service spokesperson Laurel Stavis.
"We sent out an e-mail to the entire campus community for people to come in and have their eyes cultured," Stavis said. "Lots and lots of people responded to that, and the CDC was able to find more information on the strain."
Aside from offering treatment and recommending more stringent hygiene standards, Stavis said the school put 1,000 containers of sanitizing hand lotion in students' mail boxes.
She said she has not heard of widespread cases outside of Dartmouth. According to a CDC report, the outbreak is limited to students.
"A survey of college faculty and interviews with local child care centers, schools, ophthalmologists and primary-care physicians did not identify excessive episodes of conjunctivitis in persons other than college students," the report says.
Christmas said conjunctivitis is common among students and is reported almost daily to Student Health Services, where it is usually treated with antibiotic eye drops. He recommended students wash their hands often and not share things like towels and silverware.
That the disease has not appeared to spread may also be due to changing spring break practices, he said.
"The students I've talked to are going all over the place," Christmas said. "A lot of students used to go to Ft. Lauderdale or Daytona Beach, where there'd be tens of thousands of students on the beach or drinking together, and with that close contact, it's the perfect situation for these bugs to spread."
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