COLLEGES PUT ON SWINE FLU ALERT; Universities ready to close down campuses.

Byline: MICHELLE O'KEEFFE

IRISH colleges are bracing themselves for a deadly outbreak of swine flu.

Universties are considering closing their campuses and are setting up counselling services to deal with the possible death of students from the virus.

Trinity College in Dublin is preparing to close its doors to the public as early as September in a bid to limit the spread of the H1N1 virus.

Officials are also preparing to offer counselling in the event of student deaths, set up isolation bays if required and allow staff to work at home if there is a mass epidemic. UCD's contingency plan also includes cancelling lectures and shutting down the university.

While Irish holidaymakers changing flights in Britain may be banned from boarding if airport staff suspect they are suffering from the deadly flu.

Major UK airports such as Heathrow have been instructed to vet passengers for possible symptoms.

Some countries, including Thailand, Egypt and China, have installed thermal body scanners to identify contagious passengers.

And young people are most at risk of contracting the bug with 70% of the 156 confirmed cases under the age of 35.

The HSE's head of population health Dr Pat Dorley explained: "Older people have probably been exposed to similar H1N1 virus in the past and may have some immunity to this one.

"It does affect young people more than others.

"We have seen some young healthy people affected severely.

"Of the 156 confirmed cases it has been geographically even, 12 people have had to be hospitalised and 15 cases were transmitted from person to person within the country.

"We have had no deaths so far in this country thankfully. But sadly we cannot say that will not change.

"Just looking at the pattern in the UK it is clear we are going to have more cases and inevitably there will be some deaths.

"The virus is spreading from person to person in the UK so that has consequences we have to be ready for.

"We have put massive effort into containment to date.

"We have now changed over to a treatment phase as the WHO has advised it is no longer possible to contain the virus.

"So we are concentrating on those people that are ill and are in high-risk groups."

Children under the age of four, teenagers and young adults are more likely to contract swine flu than older age groups.

The British Government is projecting that the virus could kill up to 65,000 people, based on 30% of the population being infected and an overall fatality rate of 0.35 per cent.

A HSE spokeswoman said yesterday they have not estimated a possible death toll in Ireland but using the UK figures it suggests that 1,326,600 people the Republic could catch the virus and 4,643 are likely to die.We have had no deaths so far but looking at the pattern of the UK it is inevitable there will be deaths