Awareness of bird flu amongst young college students.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the awareness among students about the disease, their attitude during the outbreak, along with their perceptions about treatment, and severity of disease. METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted among 220 intermediate students. The data was collected through a self filled questionnaire after taking verbal consent. The variables included in this study were age, gender and department (medical/non-medical). RESULTS: A total of 220 students participated with mean age of 17 +/- 1 year. There were 132 (61%) males and 84 (39%) females. The students were divided into pre-medical 110 (50%) and non-premedical 110 (50%). About 211 (96%) students said that they had heard about bird flu but only 86 (39%) correctly identified it as a disease of birds and humans both. One hundred and fifty-four (70%) participants said that virus causes it and the most common source of knowledge was media (T.V) by 153 (70%) followed by newspaper 113 (51%) respondents. Flu like symptoms were identified by 77 (35%) and 160 (73%) considered birds to human as the most likely route of transmission. Regarding vaccine, 133 (70%) replied that it is not available and 80 (41%) said that there is a treatment for the disease. About 143 (73%) thought that it is life-threatening. According to 105 (48%) the suitable preventive measure taken by the government would be to kill susceptible chickens. CONCLUSION: The awareness regarding bird flu was quite low among students. As bird flu is a world wide public health problem therefore increasing awareness would be a solution to avoid its spread and complications.