News briefs

02 October 2002 |

Flu shots offered this month at Tang Center
University Health Services will offer two flu-shot clinics this month. The first, on Friday, Oct. 18, is for healthcare workers, those at in-creased risk for flu-related complications, and members of their households. The second clinic, on Tuesday, Oct. 29, is open to all adult members of the campus and community.

Dates of additional flu-shot clinics will be posted on the UHS web site — www.uhs. berkeley.edu — as soon as vaccine shipment dates are confirmed.

The cost for faculty, staff, and members of the community is $20. Flu-shot clinics are held from noon to 6 p.m., at Tang Center, Class of ’42 Room, 2222 Bancroft Way.
For information, e-mail Pam_Cameron@uhs.berkeley.edu.

Campus to help combat bioterrorism
A new academic center to help monitor and combat bioterrorism, outbreaks of infectious diseases, and other public-health threats will be established at Berkeley with the aid of a $2.8-million federal grant.

“The weaknesses of the nation’s public-health infrastructure were made clear in last year’s anthrax attacks,” says Professor Art Reingold, head of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and lead investigator of the grant.

To remedy that situation, a network of public-health preparedness centers will train frontline health-and-safety workers in appropriate responses to acts of bioterrorism or naturally occurring outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Berkeley joins more than a dozen other centers funded under the Bush administration’s $2.9-billion bioterrorism initiative. For the full story, see www.berkeley.edu/news.

Campus staff to walk for Alzheimer’s research Oct. 12
For the past three years, Ed Fields of the campus’s Radio Astronomy Laboratory has participated in the Alzheimer’s Association “Memory Walk,” along with other UC staff — raising funds for research and support services for families confronting this disease.

Walking in honor of his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, Fields notes that the disease and related disorders afflict more than 500,000 California residents over age 60, including over 70,000 in the Bay Area. He invites other members of the campus community to join him and an informal team of UC walkers in the annual three-mile walk on Treasure Island.

This year’s event begins at 10 a.m, Saturday, Oct. 12. For information about the event or to sponsor a walker, call Fields at 642-4016.