NPR

When The Flu Hits Campus, The Gesundheit Machine Will Be Ready

It's a particularly harsh flu season. In the close quarters of dorm rooms and cafeterias and study groups, the flu will come to college campuses. And when it does, one scientist will be ready.
Undergraduate Shira Rubin, '18, gamely demonstrates the Gesundheit machine, which collects samples of virus from the breath sick students exhale. Rubin helps <a href="https://gotflu.umd.edu/people.html#syoussefi">Dr. Somayeh Youssefi</a> (L) set up the machine before patients use it.

On a blustery winter day, Dr. Don Milton and his undergraduate research assistants, Louie Gold and Amara Fox, are recruiting students for his new study on how the flu — and other viruses — spread.

As incentives, they have vouchers for the school convenience store and free hot chocolate.

Milton, at the University of Maryland, College Park, is transmission. When one of them gets sick, they'll be sent to the clinic at the School of Public Health, just across the street from the dorms.

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