Late nights and packed lectures - why freshers' flu is so hard to dodge
Late nights and packed lectures - why freshers' flu is so hard to dodge
It's the second week of term. You've finally figured out how to use the washing machine, your flatmates are starting to feel like friends, and the whirlwind of freshers' week is behind you.
But just as things settle down, your throat starts to scratch, your nose runs, and suddenly lectures are less about learning and more about trying not to cough louder than the person next to you.
You were warned it would happen, but didn't expect it to hit quite so fast.
What's actually going on here? Why does everyone seem to get freshers' flu in the first few weeks of term? And why do so many say it feels worse than the average cold?
"Freshers' flu is just an assortment of common cold viruses that come and hit us all at the same time," says Dr Zania Stamataki, associate professor of viral immunology at the University of Birmingham.
It's not the actual flu, and it's rarely serious. But when thousands of students arrive on campus they bring with them a cocktail of respiratory viruses.
Add packed lecture theatres, dirty shared kitchens and late-night parties, and the result is a wave of illness that spreads quickly.
Sheena Cruickshank, an immunologist and professor in biomedical sciences at the University of Manchester, describes it as a "mixing pot" of infections.
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