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MARS HILL, N.C. (WLOS) — There’s a virus outbreak at Mars Hill University.
School officials said at least 14 students have been diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease over the last few weeks, and a majority of them are student athletes.
It couldn’t come at a worse time with homecoming this weekend.
Danielle Harris and Rie Gooch play softball at Mars Hill.
“I think our first diagnosis was on Monday, and now we’re up to four girls that have it, and we aren’t allowed to do any extracurricular activities till Monday,” Harris said.
This week, both girls are doing everything they can to keep themselves healthy.
“Hand sanitizer, not touching my face, Emergen-C,” Gooch said.
Across campus, the university’s taking precautions to make sure the virus doesn’t spread any further.
“In the cafeteria, we’re using paper plates and plastic cutlery and also having the cafeteria staff serve the food,” communications director Mike Thornhill said.
The university has also closed the weight room and fitness center for disinfection.
Thornhill said crews are cleaning everything they can.
“Door handles, elevator buttons, other things that are kind of hard surfaces that can hold the germs. We’re doing some really intensive cleaning of some of those things just to kind of help stop the spread,” Thornhill said.
For those students already infected, the university’s advising them not to go to classes.
For everyone else, Thornhill said it’s important to wash your hands, use hand sanitizer and practice good hygiene.
“The virus spreads, generally, by touching contaminated surfaces or someone who is contaminated with it or contagious with it,” he added. “Once we find out about something, we try and jump on it immediately, and I think that’s one of the reasons that we’ve not had any really severe outbreaks of anything over the years.”
Thornhill said no new cases of the virus were reported Thursday, so he hopes the spread has slowed.
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