Invasion from the Steppes

Russian flu strikes, and the service academies are hard hit

It was no Soviet air strike but the so-called Russian flu that paralyzed the U.S. Air Force Academy, near Colorado Springs, Colo., last week. In one two-hour period, more than 500 cadets flocked to the academy's clinic. Then classes were canceled as three-fourths of the 4,312 cadets were hit with fevers, sore throats, head and body aches, and weakness.

Also immobilized by the viral onslaught was the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., where 3,000 or more of the 4,300 midshipmen were confined to their rooms and dosed with aspirin and cough medicine. Actually, it appears that the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., had been hit by an earlier outbreak but this was not publicized. Before the end of January, 200 to 300 cadets were reporting to sick call daily at West Point. That epidemic has passed its peak but has spread across the Hudson to Vassar. Says Dr. Rita Jaeger, health director of the predominantly female college near Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: "Students here go out with men from West Point. Flu is now going across our campus. We've had 600 to 700 come into the clinic, and there are probably as many sitting in their rooms." The possibility of similar developments exists around Colorado Springs, where high school girls date cadets.

The nationwide flu picture is confused by the persistence of some A/Victoria virus left over from last winter's outbreaks and the current prevalence of A/Texas. Nonetheless, isolation of Russian flu virus has been confirmed not only at the three service academies but also in Wyoming, Colorado, Michigan and Texas, and unconfirmed reports of outbreaks are trick ling in from most of the other states.

While military trainees were most conspicuous among the earlier victims, Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington has confirmed at least two cases of the misnamed Russian flu (it actually erupted first in China last May, then spread across the steppes of Soviet Asia). A children's hospital in Memphis has confirmed another. In the majority of cases so far reported, the flu has been relatively mild with many patients recovering in three or four days. At the service academies, the cadets and middies, thanks to their generally topnotch condition, suffered lighter attacks and were making quicker recoveries than would a random sample of average citizens.

Since the Russian flu virus strain was prevalent in 1947-57, many Americans over 25 have some if not substantial immunity. As a result, few if any of the academies' faculty members were among the victims. "It's one of the advantages of being middle-aged," said Dr. Richard S. Foster, the air academy's chief medical officer. How fast this new/old flu will spread among the population at large, however, is unpredictable. It could go on a nationwide rampage within the remaining weeks of winter, or spread slowly, person to person, until next fall's flu season.

Center for Disease Control virologists and immunologists, as well as officials at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Washington, have been debating for a month what sort of flu vaccine should now be produced and in what quantities. Their decisions are expected to be announced soon. sb

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