Students Can Battle Flu With Free Vaccinations

University Health Services (UHS) is providing free vaccines to guard against five flu strains that medical experts predict will attack this winter.

Although young, healthy students probably don't need vaccines, UHS Deputy Director Dr. Sholem Postel said those students who have chronic health problems, including diabetes and heart and lung problems, should consider being vaccinated.

About 650 members of the Harvard community have been immunized this year by UHS, and Postel estimated that two to three times more people will get vaccines by the end of the season.

The main vaccine protects the body from three flu strains--A/Mississippi, found in 1985, A/Chile, found in 1983, and a newly-identified virus, B/Ann Arbor. Another shot guards against a flu strain known as A/Taiwan, identified in Asia last January.

No cases of A/Taiwan have been identified in the Boston area, but doctors recommend vaccines for people under 35 with underlying health problems, said Joseph S. DeCiuti, state immunization manager for communicative diseases. People born after 1950 likely have built up a natural immunity through contact with a similar, earlier strain of Asian flu, he said.

Vaccinations are safe, effective and extremely well tolerated, said Ciuti. Because they are made of the dead flu virus, they cannot give people the disease, he said.

More than 350 Massachusetts communities have in the last three months received 250,000 state-funded doses of the main flu vaccine, intended mainly for senior citizens and people with chronic health problems.